Errors in Judgement

The Immeasurable In-Between (Kirk/McCoy, R) part 5

2013-08-01T01:05:08Z

<< Part 4

Day 14

For the thing that will determine the course of McCoy’s life, Jim’s revival is shockingly easy: a hypo full of dedrazine, on top of discontinuing the albiturates. They don’t even bother to do it in an operating theater, because Jim isn’t on life support. So there’s just Jim, surrounded by a ring of doctors that includes McCoy, now in medical whites--some winged contraption, of Marcus’s design no doubt--acting as if he’s one of the crowd.

The neurogram is the first thing to show signs of change, a fluttering butterfly of a line as Jim’s brain becomes more active. Then Jim’s hand twitches, and McCoy nearly jumps out of his skin.

Come back. Come back to me, you beautiful son of a bitch, he thinks, eyes on Jim’s neural profile, heart in his throat.

“Vitals are looking good,” Boyce says. He aims a small, pulsing light at Jim’s eyes. “No problem syncing alpha waves. I think we’re ready for another 20 cc’s.” The nurse hands Boyce the hypo, and he pivots and hands it to McCoy. “Care to do the honors?”

McCoy has to strain to keep the look of horrified surprise off his face, while inwardly cursing Boyce and his deceptively avuncular manner. He has no choice but to take the hypo and then stand there, staring at it, until T'Kan must be wondering if his two weeks off from Medical have left him unable to perform the most basic tasks.

Boyce hovers at his elbow, watching, and then finally gives him a small but actual shove with an elbow to his ribs.

“All in, Doctor,” he says.

McCoy watches his own hands lift the hypo and guide it to Jim’s arm. There’s a hiss as the medicine goes in, this injection a perfect mirror of the first, except that the Enterprise isn’t coming apart around him, and he has more than a faint hope that this one will work.

There’s a long pause during which nothing happens, not even another twitch of Jim’s hand, and McCoy is on the verge of believing that nothing will. Into the void comes a sudden memory of Jim on the deck of the Enterprise taking the last minute of his life to apologize to his crew.

I’m sorry.

It was the worst thing McCoy had ever seen, worse even that his death: Jim, defeated, the hero’s story brought to a violent end, the bad guy winning, everything that was bright and good about Jim and Starfleet on the verge of being wiped out in an instant of malicious force. And then Jim had fought back the way Jim always did, and he won, even at the cost of his life. Saving the rest of them was the only victory that counted, and it seemed Khan was right--it was a good death as far as Jim was concerned, and maybe Jim would have been content to leave the story there, despite his fears.

“She’s giving me up,” David said. They were sitting on the front porch enjoying a summer twilight, cool rising from the valley and lifting away the heavy heat of day. “She said she knew I wasn’t happy, which is funny, because I thought I was.”

“That’s bull,” McCoy snorts, bitterness like a sharp-edged rock in his chest. “She’s the one who wants to get away from here. There’s nothing noble about it.”

“Oh, no, I think she’s probably right.” David crosses his long legs and takes a sip of tea; even now, he won’t drink bourbon until after 8 PM. “It’s love that’s selfish. Indifference can be pretty clear-eyed.”

Back in the present, McCoy thinks, Dad, you were right. I’m the one I’m doing this for.

As if on command, Jim’s lashes flutter open. His eyes are the brightest thing in the room.

The doctors spring into action like they’re performing a well-rehearsed dance, scanning Jim’s brain and irrigating his eyes and adjusting his electrolyte balance. McCoy just stands there, hands limp at his sides.

Jim’s blinks against the harsh light, and his tongue darts out to wet his lips. The first thing he says is “Shit,” followed by “Bones.” His voice is raspy, but distinct.

“Here,” McCoy says, voice hardly stronger. “I’m here, Jim. Right here.” He drops a shaking hand to Jim’s shoulder, gripping it lightly. His heart is full to bursting, the shock and joy enough that he’s afraid he’s going to become a patient himself--Boyce’s, probably, because luck this incredible can’t possibly hold. It doesn’t matter; McCoy would trade whatever he has, whatever he will have, for this moment.

Jim’s eyes roam the room, assessing, trying to figure out the where and why and how long on what may be scant or absence memories.

His gaze settles on McCoy, and he squints a little against the white glare, pupils contracting. “What the fuck are you wearing?”

“He’s fine,” Boyce says, continuing to check the neurograms anyway.

With hope roaring in his ears, it still occurs to McCoy that Jim might mistake him for some otherworldly being. “New uniform. We’re at Starfleet Medical, and I--”

“Not yet,” Dr. T’Kan says, moving to block McCoy. “We must first ask Captain Kirk a series of questions to determine the state of his memory. Captain, do you know what year it is?”

Jim’s eyes aren’t exactly focused, but he still manages to approximate an eyeroll. “2259.”

“Do you know who the Federation president is?”

Jim squeezes his eyes tight, concentrating, and then pops them open again. “That asshole I didn’t vote for.”

T’Kan cocks an eyebrow. “And what is the last thing you remember?”

Jim shifts uncomfortably in the bed, as if trying to reacclimate to having muscle control. “Standing on the bridge of the Enterprise, about to get blown up.”

McCoy tells himself that short-term memory loss is not unexpected, and a small price to pay, though he’s not sure if it’s better for Jim to remember his death or his defeat.

“I see.” T’Kan nods, noncommittal, tapping away on her padd. “Thank you, Captain. We’ll have more questions later, but now we shall attempt to make you comfortable. You have a long period of recuperation and rehabilitation ahead of you.”

“Oh, good,” Jim says as the white coats close in. “That sounds like fun.”

The team now realigns itself around a conscious (and rather cranky and demanding) Kirk, bringing him water and oral medication and some easily digestible goo, presented in the traditional form of a gelatin dessert. McCoy takes a minute to text Spock, who’s stuck in some admirals’ meeting. He’s awake and everything seems fine.

Mere seconds later he gets back, Thank you. I am very pleased to hear it. McCoy is glad that, for once, there’s an emotion Spock isn’t ashamed to admit to.

After another half-hour or so of tests and report-making, the great doctor armada is ready to move on.

“I trust you not to tire him out,” Boyce says, and then claps him a little too hard between the shoulder blades. “Good work, McCoy.” McCoy shrugs him off and doesn’t deign to reply.

“Friend of yours?” Jim asks when he’s left.

McCoy snorts. “Not hardly. Mostly a reminder of why I could never work at Medical.”

There’s a brief silence during which everything that comes to McCoy’s mind to say seems awkward at best and pushy at worst. He settles for the bland.

“Can I get you anything?”

Jim makes a little sound of derision. Everything, even his laughter, is altered with disuse--not rusty, but refurbished, like a ship on a shakedown cruise. “You mean like juice or something? No, what you already got me is plenty.”

“What?” McCoy is abruptly on his guard. “What do you mean?”

“You saved my life, right?”

“Do you remember that you--” McCoy trails off.

Abruptly, Jim’s eyes lock on McCoy’s. “That I died? Yeah. I remember everything.” He squeezes his eyes shut again, like he’s trying to clear a headache. “Lying to your doctors isn’t perjury or anything is, it? I just knew they were probably going to ask me a million questions, and I don’t feel like--” He stops and recalibrates. “Where’s Spock?”

McCoy does his best to repress a stab of jealousy. “Covering for you at some bigwig meeting. He wanted to be here. He’s been here every day.”

“And he’s okay? Everybody’s okay?” Jim tries to raise himself off the bed, but McCoy holds up a cautionary hand.

“Whoa there. He’s fine. Everybody’s fine,” McCoy says, not wanting to mention, at this point, the many thousands who are far from fine.

“Good,” Jim says with a sigh, relaxing back into the bed. “That’s good. Me included, I guess. So what did you do?”

There’s no point in hiding it; Starfleet knows and the world will likely know. Still, McCoy sighs. “Khan’s blood is capable of repairing massive cell damage. I made a serum from it and injected you with it.”

Jim’s eyes go wide and McCoy is ready for anger or suspicion or questions, but not for the smile that breaks over Jim’s face.

“Seriously? Did you have to squeeze it out of him drop by drop? Maybe through his eyeballs?” Seeing McCoy’s guilty look, he tries to wipe the smile off his face. “No, I know you wouldn’t do that, but trust me, Spock’s right about this one. Peace is great but there are times when violence is really fucking called for.” His glee turns to a frown and he and stares at his hands, which are fidgeting with the edge of the sheet.

“What I did was pretty close,” McCoy says tentatively. “He may be a war criminal, but he wasn’t a willing donor. His blood was probably his last bargaining chip.”

“I know,” Jim says, still frowning. “I heard Spock and Uhura talking about it. At least, I think I did.”

“You could hear?” That’s big damned news to McCoy; none of the neurograms suggested such a thing should be possible. “You didn’t feel like you were trapped in your body, did you, because--”

“No, no, don’t get all doctory. It wasn’t bad at all. It was like dreaming, except that sometimes it was whole conversations. I think some of them were real--Scotty said the Enterprise is getting a new warp engine, I hope that was real--but there were memories, too, my mom and Pike, and other things.” A small, private smile comes to his lips. “Good things, so I didn’t feel so lonely.”

The idea that some part of Jim had been awake inside his unmoving body, alone in the crowds of doctors and visitors, is more than McCoy can stand. Jim’s left hand is lying quiescent on the sheet. He reaches out and covers it with his own, torn between apology and confession. He should let Jim rest, or talk, or tell him about everything that’s gone on since he took his temporary leave from the world, but all that he can think is Jim is awake, and he’s here, and I’m here.

“You weren’t alone,” McCoy says, his own voice guttural to his ears. “Even when I wasn’t here, I--Oh, God, Jim--”

He catches himself just at the edge of breaking down, because it isn’t fair to Jim to dump all this on him when he hardly knows what reality he’s been reborn into. Instead he clings to Jim’s hand, unable to meet his eyes.

McCoy’s resolve lasts as long as it takes Jim to reach up, joints cracking, and lay a hand on his arm. Jim, with his flawless instinct for danger, knows McCoy is lost, and of course he’ll come after him.

The same way he would for Spock. The same way he would for any member of his crew.

“I tried,” McCoy says, angry tears in his eyes. “I tried to be strong, I tried to tell myself that whether you lived or died or ended up somewhere in between, that I’d deal with it, because you accepted the risk and so did I, when you put your life in my hands. I’m supposed to be your doctor and your friend and an officer on a goddamned starship, and I’m supposed to know something about life at this age, but in the end--all those people in the city who lost everything, all those Vulcans who lost their whole damn planet--I can barely tie my shoelaces without you. So yeah, Jim,” he finishes, scrubbing at his face with the sleeve of the white uniform that hides nothing, “I was worried.”

Jim draws his hand away, slowly, swallowing hard. McCoy wouldn’t blame him if he pulled the covers over his head and went back to sleep, the way his alleged best friend is carrying on. But when he dares to meet Jim’s eyes, there are tears in them, too.

“I’m really sorry,” he says. “I guess I had the easy part. Shit, if it had been you-- That thing with the torpedo was bad enough; it took about five years off my life.” He’s smiling a little, trying to take the edge off. For someone who can talk the stripes off a zebra, Jim is honest when it counts. It’s not deception that McCoy fears, it’s that he has no idea what Jim’s interior space of relationships looks like. Of the handful McCoy knows about--himself, Pike, Winona, and now Spock--they’re either friends or parent figures. He has no idea if Jim even has a blueprint for what McCoy wants. “If it helps, there were a bunch of times in the last 24 hours--or whenever, it could be the future for all I know--when I thought I was going to lose it. I saw people, my own people, die in front of me. But if it had been you--”

“Then we’re even,” McCoy interrupts, not even sure why, except that it’s second nature, a self-defense mechanism that predates even Jocelyn. He can feel himself contracting, retreating back to an easy friendship, one that fits now like an old sweater, one that McCoy thought he shrugged off decisively, at least when Jim was unconscious.

Jim is looking at him with that familiar bright incisiveness; his wits are returning like the fire-up of a warp core. But Jim is a good enough friend that he’s learned to navigate around McCoy’s insecurities. Whatever he sees, whatever he heard in his twilight sleep, he’ll be happy to drop it if that lets McCoy keep his beloved status quo. Jim won’t do what McCoy needs him to do for the very reason McCoy wishes he would, and thinking of the endless spirals of possibility away from this moment make him crazy with frustration.

He can’t live like this. Not any more.

“Jim,” he begins. His hand is still covering Jim’s, so he picks it up, presses it between his own. It’s large but fine, pale with prominent veins, capable and beautiful, and McCoy loves it the way he loves everything else about Jim, with a magnitude that acknowledges and transcends faults. “These last two weeks-- they took me off your case, so I didn’t have time to do anything but think. And I want to tell you that I’ll always be your friend, but that would be a lie. It hasn’t been true for a while.”

“Oh?” Jim looks concerned now, and a bit wary. “What do you mean? For how long?”

“Not since Anatareon.”

He watches the realization pass over Jim’s face like fast-moving clouds across the bay.

“I thought you--” he begins, and then stops, flashes a quick self-mocking smile, and starts again. “I mean, I’m not the most dependable person. Pike was right about that; I almost got everyone killed, and it was sheer fucking luck that I didn’t. The thing is, I always feel like I can see everything so clearly--it’s like a landing strip with a bunch of lights along it, and all you have to do is follow it. But sometimes the lights are wrong and you head into the mountain instead, and now that I know that, how am I ever going to make a decision again?” Jim rubs his forehead like there’s an itch inside. “Am I making any sense? My brain is probably still kind of broken.”

“You’re making perfect sense. You’re pretty much describing my life.”

“You weren’t indecisive about the Khan blood thing. Pulling that off in the middle of a starship battle is pretty fucking amazing.”

“But that was--that was selfish,” McCoy almost moans. “I did that because I couldn’t stand the idea of you being dead. I wanted to undo it, by any means necessary. My God, Jim, what did I do?”

Jim lifts up his other hand and wraps it around McCoy’s. “What you always do. Turn death into a fighting chance to live. Nobody hates death more than you do, but it’s not exactly an enemy you can defeat. Except it seems like you did.”

“For you,” McCoy says desperately. “I did it for you.”

“I know,” Jim says, with the same calm smile. Only a man like Jim, McCoy thinks, could accept a gift so large.

Jim looks down at their clasped hands and brushes his fingers across McCoy’s knuckles. It’s a small freedom, but thrilling, knowing that Jim feels confident enough to take it.

“It’s going to happen again, you know, if we do this thing,” Jim says. “We’re going to be making decisions that could get the other person killed all the time. That will get the other person killed, probably; I mean, I’ve only been at this for a year and I’ve already died once. Is that something you’re going to be able to stand?”

“Yes,” McCoy says without hesitation. Every path leads to the same place in the end; no one knows that better than a doctor. But out of all possible realities, this is the one he’s chosen, the one that he’ll be able to think about without regret.

“Good,” Jim says, a hint of mischief in his voice. “It’s probably just going to get worse. I’m going to go for that deep space assignment, you know. Uncharted territory.”

It should all be terrifying--the newness of it, the worlds to explore, Jim’s charismatic unpredictability victorious again. But for once McCoy isn’t scared at all.

Jim tightens his grip on McCoy’s hand, just for a second, and then closes his eyes, sinking back into the exhaustion of the newly resurrected, completely at peace.
+++++

Notes: I tried to be as canon-compliant as possible (although, Trek writers, you make that damn hard, but you may have noticed I left out McCoy's line when Jim wakes up. In the context of the story (and maybe in the movie as well) I couldn't see him making a simultaneous joke about Jim being dead and having acquired genocidal tendencies. So let's say that happens when Jim wakes up from his nap and McCoy is in more of a joking mood.</p>

I also had to figure out a way to deal with the whole "Doctor cures death, news at 11" thing, so I decided that the serum is good for repairing massive cell damage caused by disease or injury, which makes it extremely useful, but not a panacea. It's also my headcanon that one of things it cures is pyrrhoneuritis, the disease that killed David McCoy in the TOS timeline, and that he's already beginning to suffer from in this story. In the original timeline, a cure was found just weeks after Leonard took his father off life support, causing him to have terrible feelings of guilt. Maybe in this timeline, Leonard is the one who finds the cure that, in TOS, was found by someone else, and he won't spend the rest of his life feeling as guilty and angsty as he does in this story ;)

The Immeasurable In-Between (Kirk/McCoy, R) part 4

2013-08-01T01:04:07Z

<< Part 4

Day 11

McCoy half-sleeps through another restless night--he’s turned into as much of a pig as Jim but a lot less fun, leaving a trail of takeout containers and tangled sheets behind him--but he manages to stumble into the Neurology ward at 0800 looking reasonably well groomed and not like a man on the verge of losing his medical license or his sanity.

Spock is already there, an aggravation, but something he’s getting used to, like the cheap holoprint of the Crab Nebula above Jim’s bed. Spock is irritating, McCoy is irritated, Jim is as silent as ever, and it seems like the whole cycle may go on forever. The only prospect more frightening is the alternative.

“Dr. McCoy,” Spock says after giving him a few moments to make his rounds of the monitors. “I trust your testimony before the Commission went well?”

“Oh, sure, just dandy--thanks for reminding me. There’s a slim possibility I won’t be cashiered and have my medical license revoked, so I guess you could say it went alright.”

Spock draws his eyebrows together, the closest he can come to a frown. “I thought Nyota had--” he pauses. “Doctor,” he begins again, a little louder. “The forecast predicts that the pleasant weather we’ve been enjoying for the past two days will be ending this afternoon. Perhaps you would care to accompany me for a walk? I suggest Muir Woods.”

“You want me to go for a walk in the forest with you? Now I’ve heard--” But he catches Spock’s eye, looking pointedly at the bank of monitoring equipment. “Oh.” He scratches his arm and glances at Jim. “Well, I suppose a walk would be nice.”

After a half hour and an airbus across the Golden Gate Bridge, they’re walking down a broad dirt path between the giant redwoods, morning light filtering between feathery branches. It’s cool and lush, and the oxygen clears some of the fog from McCoy’s brain. It’s pleasant, even if Spock isn’t the most agreeable of companions. He keeps a steady, almost metronomic pace, barely looking around, while McCoy’s gaze wanders to the joggers and day hikers and the giant trees themselves, most of them older than human spaceflight. Spock finally pauses when they reach a cul de sac and gestures toward a bench.

“For pete’s sake,” McCoys says. “I get the need for secrecy, but Uhura only took me across the bay. And she bought me lunch.”

Spock gives him an unreadable look. “Nyota is an astute observer of Starfleet politics, but she isn’t privy to the same information I am. I am the acting captain of the Enterprise.”

“That’s news to me. That poor ship’s barely got two tritanium sticks to rub together. Anyhow, she’s already got a captain.”

“Acting captain,” Spock repeats. He waits, stubbornly, for McCoy to sit down before he continues. “We expect to hear any day now whether the Enterprise will be rebuilt or decommissioned. If it is the latter, I will lose that title, but in the meantime--”

“You get invited to all the fancy parties. I get it. So tell me what gossip you’ve been hearing. Just don’t talk too loud, that squirrel over there might be a spy.”

Spock’s look of annoyance makes McCoy feel like he’s accomplished something this morning after all.

“Did the panel for your testimony for the committee include anyone who wasn’t identified? A human male, perhaps?”

“Who, that angry son-of-a-bitch with the beard? Yes. Who the hell is he?”

The squirrel is advancing on Spock, apparently looking for a handout. McCoy is tempted to tell it not to waste its time.

“He introduces himself as Elliot Targ, a private security consultant, but I believe him to be the new head of Section 31.”

“I thought that nonsense got blown up in London.”

“The London facility was one of many. It’s unlikely that Section 31 was incapacitated, and I am afraid to say, even less likely that Starfleet will shut it down. The effort to root out more corruption and secret programs is--regrettably, to my mind--proving to be a justification to keep Section 31 in operation.”

“A fancy way of saying that Starfleet is eating its own.” McCoy feels tired again, and annoyed to be out of range of coffee. “Well, it can chew me up and spit me out for all I care. I just wish Jim were here--not here here, but you know what I mean. He’d cut through this bull like a hot knife through warm butter.”

“That is exactly why it may be better that he is not here.”

“Better?” McCoy jumps to his feet, causing the squirrel to skitter away. “If you’re saying Jim is better off unconscious, then I have a mind to--”

“That is not what I’m suggesting,” Spock says, unmoving. “Only that an unconscious hero cannot incriminate himself, while a conscious one can. That is why Nyota advised you to allow the Commission to think that the serum was Khan’s idea. I suspect, however, that you did not follow her advice.”

“I didn’t,” McCoy says flatly. “I’m not subtle enough to play this game, I don’t hold with lying, and I don’t give a good goddamn what happens to me at this point.”

“If Jim recovers and the Enterprise is repaired and sent on a five-year mission, you may.”

The thought of that knocks McCoy speechless, and he drops back down onto the hard wooden bench. In his mind’s eye he sees the Enterprise and Jim, warping away without him.

“She could have told me that. I just thought she wanted to spare me a court martial.”

Spock’s jaw tightens. “We did not appreciate how much your emotional state would affect your reasoning.”

“Oh, we didn’t, did we? And you weren’t emotionally affected at all. Tell me.” He jabs a finger at Spock. “Tell me you and Uhura wouldn’t have moved heaven and earth to save Jim’s life.”

“I can tell you no such thing, but fortunately, we did not have to. Your discovery ensured that.”

A gust of wind sets the delicate branches of the great trees to swaying. It seems that these days, a storm is never far away. For a long moment they’re both silent, listening to the wind, and then Spock says, “You did tell the Commission it was your discovery, did you not?”

“‘Discovery’ is a mite strong. A happy accident, I suppose, although God knows it’s going to put the fox in the chicken coop when the word gets out, regardless of what happens to me.”

Spock nods slowly. “I believe that in the end this may be for the best. I have been reviewing the archives on the Eugenics Wars, and I have been unable to find a mention of any extraordinary regenerative powers. If Augments had been functionally immortal, the war might have been even more horrific.”

“What are you saying, then? Khan was telling the truth about being the only one?”

“I’m saying that I believe Khan’s regenerative power might have been something he himself developed.”

“Another project of Marcus’s? My God--a heavily armed Starfleet with soldiers able to instantly recover from the most severe injuries--you don’t think he meant to bring back augmentation?” Spock’s right, and maybe his father is, too; without Jim’s nimble brain to help him see through the infinite layers of politics, he might be better off in Georgia, tending to scraped knees and clogged arteries.

“That, I do not know,” Spock says, “though I doubt that would have been beyond the bounds of possibility. However, it is my belief that Khan developed this capability on his own, perhaps to protect his own life, or perhaps to use as bargaining chip. The human fear of death is overwhelming and endemic; what wouldn’t someone--someone highly placed in Starfleet--do to save a loved one?”

“I know what I wouldn’t do; I wouldn’t kill an innocent person, and I wouldn’t bring back some kind of plague to humankind. If I thought that’s what this cure did, I’d let Jim die.” That much, McCoy feels confident about.

“You have that power, don’t you?” Spock asks quietly. “Legal power to discontinue Jim’s life support?”

“I do,” McCoy says, his mouth dry, “but Jim isn’t on life support, and that’s only in case of severe brain damage. At this point we don’t know what state he’d be in, if he weren’t in the coma.” He rubs a hand over his face. The queasy uncertainty--should I have, or shouldn’t I? isn’t going to go away, not until Jim’s in-between state collapses in one direction or the other.

Spock says nothing, but doesn’t move off the bench, either. The next gust of wind makes McCoy regret rushing out of the hospital in only a thin cotton shirt.

“There is something I wish you to know, Doctor.” Spock says finally. “Jim did not want to die. He was prepared to make the sacrifice for the crew of the Enterprise, for all of us--but he suffered from the same fear as any human approaching death. As any mortal being.”

McCoy resists the urge to leap up and bolt down the forest path. “I don’t want to hear what he was afraid of.”

“I could not touch his mind, so I have nothing more specific to offer,” Spock continues, relentless. “But if he was like Admiral Pike, his primary emotion was regret. At his perceived failure, at having to leave the rest of us behind to deal with the consequences.”

“Just--don’t. That’s too damned personal.”

“It is human. You of all people should appreciate that.” He turns to face McCoy. “Jim is my friend. My wish for him is to have as few regrets as possible when that time comes again, as it must.”

“That’s what I want for him, too. Of course.” McCoy tightens his jaw against the emotions he’d rather Spock not see.

“And you have taken positive steps to ensure that. I admit I am still learning about the ability that humans call intuition, which I believe to be a form of innate logic. Jim uses it most effectively. You did also, in your commission testimony. You provided Starfleet with a way to leverage your discovery largely untainted by its association with Khan. In doing so you may have saved your own career, so that you will continue to be able to serve on board the Enterprise. With Jim.”

“You’re sure he’s going to recover, then?”

Spock does the Vulcan version of a shrug, with his eyebrows. “If he does not, there is no further planning required. But if he does--I see no reason we should not be prepared.”

McCoy sits in silence for a long moment, heart full but unwilling to let his eyes tear up in front of Spock. “You’re a good friend,” he says. “To Jim, I mean.”

The corners of Spock’s mouth turn up ever so slightly. “I understand your meaning very well.”

After a few more awkward moments, Spock announces that he wants to go meditate and vanishes down a distant path like a woodland sprite in a ‘Fleet tunic, leaving McCoy alone with his thoughts.

It’s easy, now, to convince himself that he was reconciled to Jim’s passing, whether to death or some twilight way-state. But Spock has tempted him with the possibility of a future to eclipse any past, and McCoy knows there’s no way going back. If Spock had gotten a glimpse into Jim’s thoughts McCoy might have asked--he’s that desperately eager--if Jim felt the same way too. But now the only way to know will be to ask Jim himself.

Day 12

McCoy wakes at 0600 as usual to heavy gray skies and a squall beating rain against the windows. It matches his mood a little closely. He pulls Jim’s sheets over his head and, for once, is able to get back to sleep, and when he opens his eyes again it’s close to noon. He feels rested, sated with sleep, but angry at himself for the break in his routine, which among other things is going to be hell on his already confused Circadian rhythm.

The storms have cleared out, but the sky still threatens rain. McCoy decides to chance the walk anyway, stopping at the bakery on Geary for a sandwich and a cup of coffee. He knows the routine can’t last forever: sooner or later he’ll have to go back to work, someone will reclaim Jim’s apartment. For now, though, it’s keeping him connected to Jim. The routine is all he has.

Inside Jim’s room there’s no change of time or weather; the doctors and nurses barely glance up when McCoy walks by. He’s part of the furniture, like the white visitor’s chair and the orange plant, which has grown long tendrils and a weird blue flower since Sulu brought it. McCoy has achieved a fragile detente with Boyce, Jim’s attending, although the guy’s cranky as hell and his bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired.

In the early afternoon, Scotty appears, in full uniform and carrying an official ‘Fleet padd.

“Leonard!” he says warmly, shaking McCoy’s hand. “I’m very glad you’re here. I come bearing news.” He hoists the padd.

“Good news, I hope?”

“I hope so, too, but I haven’t a clue.” He approaches Jim’s bed respectfully, as if Jim were conscious and sitting behind the desk in his ready room. “It’s the assessment of the Enterprise from Engineering. Whether they’re going to repair the old girl or sell her off for scrap.”

There’s a hitch in Scotty’s voice that McCoy doesn’t find amusing at all. While he doesn’t share Jim and Scotty’s boundless infatuation with the Enterprise he appreciates what it symbolizes: a promise to always come home. He’d see the great ship sent to the junkyard with great regret, and he knows that it would break Jim’s heart.

“Let’s hope for the best, then,” McCoy says, patting Scotty’s shoulder.

“Always. Well, here goes nothing.” McCoy sees a flash of the Starfleet emblem over Scotty’s shoulder. There’s a long pause in which McCoy waits expectantly until he realizes Scotty’s eyes are closed.

“Well, aren’t you going to read it?”

“It feels wrong,” he says, eyes still squeezed tight. “It should go to the Captain first.”

“That’s a nice sentiment, but he’s not going to be able to read it any time soon.” McCoy feels the irritation of suspense, aware that he’s being more than a bit superstitious in light of what he knows about captains and their ships.

“Here, this’ll do.” Scotty slides the padd into one of Jim’s lax hands. McCoy flinches inwardly; he hasn’t touched Jim’s bare skin since he injected Khan’s blood into him, but Scotty does it as easily and naturally as if they were all sitting around the conference table. “All right then, on the count of three? One, two-- Ach, I can’t bear to look. What if they rebuild her, and it’s as one of those Dreadnought monsters? The advanced warp capabilities are fantastic, and there are aspects of the hull design I’d keep, but a ship that size’ll have stability--”

“Scotty.” McCoy can practically feel himself developing a tic. “If Jim were awake, he’d tell you to move it along.”

“Right you are. Here we are, then.” A tap, a scroll, and Scotty leans over Jim as if he’s trying to read over his shoulder. Scotty’s expression turns from frowning concentration to open-mouthed wonder, and tears form in his eyes. “Oh,” he sighs. “Oh, my. They’re going to save her. A complete retrofit, with advanced warp and a lot of other goodies besides. She’ll still be our Enterprise, only better. Do you hear that, Jim?” he whispers. “We’re getting our girl back, and she’ll have everything she deserves. All she needs now is her captain.”

When Scotty stands up and straightens his uniform, McCoy pulls him into a hug without a second thought.

Day 13

McCoy’s taken to dozing off in the white visitor’s chair, though it hasn’t gotten a bit more comfortable in the last two weeks. He figures after so many restless nights his body’s finally catching up, so when Boyce shakes his shoulder--none too gently--he wakes up with a snort and a startle reaction more appropriate to the bridge of a starship than a hospital room.

“Easy, easy,” Boyce says, taking a step back, and then, after a closer look and his bleary face, “Hard to believe you’re the one the nurses are always going on about.”

“I’m at my best after lunch.” McCoy runs a hand through his hair, which is getting long and increasingly unfamiliar with a comb.

“I’m at my best after a martini, but we all have to carry on as best as we can. So, Doctor--I have, as they say, good news and--I don’t know what the rest of the news is. Could be good, could be bad.”

“Don’t be cute about it, whatever it is.” McCoy is now sitting ramrod straight in the chair. “Just tell me.”

That at least wipes the sardonic smile off Boyce’s face. “Well, alright then. First of all, congratulations--you’ve been placed on active duty, assigned to the Neurology Department at Starfleet Medical, which as I’m sure you know by now is right here.”

For that, McCoy could almost hug him. “Am I assigned to Jim’s case?”

“If you want to be. See, that brings me to the second thing--Dr. T'Kan proposed a plan to wake him up as early as tomorrow, if his neurograms stay consistent. She thinks that we gain nothing by waiting longer, except further deterioration in his physical condition from disuse.”

After so long without news or change in his life, it’s more than McCoy can handle. The possibility of Jim awake--talking, smiling, but also maybe suffering the mental or physical effects of the radiation poisoning--fills him with almost unbearable eagerness and a feeling that things are moving too fast.

“That sounds reasonable,” he says, trying to sound like the Starfleet doctor that he is again. “So what’s the possibly bad news?”

Boyce hooks a stool with his foot, the one the nurses perch on when they’re reading Jim’s charts and pulls it to within knee-bumping distance. “I know you know the risks by now. Hell, you’ve probably committed them to memory, see them hovering in the dark at night. Oh, don’t give me that look--I may be a doctor, but I’ve had loved ones as patients, too. So suppose we bring him out of the coma, based on the best information we have today, which is that we’ll gain nothing by waiting. But then let’s say something bad happens. Maybe he’s never completely himself again, or he relapses, or he gets sick a year or two or more from now, and you wonder if we should have waited. We don’t know all the effects of this magic serum of yours, and we may not in the near future, but--” the smile has crept back onto Boyce’s face--”you try keeping the researchers away once they realize we could have a cure for everything from Iverson’s disease to pyrrhoneuritis. You’re a modern Prometheus, Dr. McCoy.”

“You know what’s Greek to me?” McCoy growls. “Your point.”

“Simple enough. If we wake him up tomorrow, we’re acting on the best information we have today. But science marches forward. Or warps forward, when you’re around.”

“Are you telling me it’s my choice?” McCoy feels like he’s being set up, but he’s not sure for what.

Boyce is all seriousness now, hands clasped in front of him, a lock of silver hair falling in his eyes as he leans forward to speak to McCoy with paternal confidence. He does indeed remind McCoy of David a little, though he trusts that if David were here, he wouldn’t be trying to confuse McCoy’s tired mind with impossible ethical dilemmas.

“With Kirk’s medical power of attorney, you could decide to take him out of here, find somewhere with round-the-clock care and a biobed they don’t mind having used indefinitely. But as his doctor--”

“--I’d be actively participating in the decision. Yes, I know. Doesn’t seem to me that it makes a hell of a lot of difference.”

“You might feel differently, if it turns out to be the wrong one, and you have to live the rest of your life with it.”

“I’ll take my chances,” McCoy says, with a conviction he doesn’t feel.

Boyce shrugs, as if to say he’s done his best. “I’m glad you’re confident. Right, Doctor, I’ll see you at 1000 tomorrow, if not before.” He nods toward McCoy’s cotton sweater and thrice-unwashed jeans. “And I’ll expect you to be all suited up. Good luck finding a senior officer uniform that fits; that new white job is a dilly.”

Boyce leaves McCoy where he found him, slouched in the chair two feet from Jim’s bed, but it’s too far away. He moves closer, close enough to see the white, unvarying hospital light glinting off Jim’s dark lashes. He tries to tease out the threads of his desires--to have the ordeal end; to live on with hope, even if false; and most of all, to be able to look into Jim’s eyes again, just to talk with him, be annoyed by him, touch him--

He reaches out a trembling hand to take Jim’s in his. Contrary to his fears, Jim’s flesh is soft and warm, the hand well-tended, nails kept short. He’s like a perfect monument to himself, all the signifiers of Jim with none of his actual presence. It’s the presence McCoy aches for, something he’d never call a soul but is more than a collection of thoughts and memories. Jim is a trajectory, a place that McCoy wants to go, without whom his life is hollow, earthbound, all the conventional things that he once loved, that his father still loves. There’s only space in McCoy’s heart now to love one thing.

“Just a little more time,” McCoy whispers. “A few minutes, an hour--that’s all I want. You can make fun of my hair, call me an idiot, I don’t care.” He’s trying so hard not to cry, but the tears come all the same because he’s weak, and he knows what he’s said is a lie. From here on out, he won’t be satisfied with less than everything.

Part 5 >>

The Immeasurable In-Between (Kirk/McCoy, R) part 3

2013-08-01T00:39:19Z

<< Part 2

Day 8

With no post at Medical, McCoy improvises an office in a study cube in the Library. He’s got all the time he always said he wanted, but spends more of it skimming thrice-read novels than catching up on medical journals or visiting friends. He’s studying a particularly interesting crack on the wall when Uhura slides open the glass door and sticks her head in.

“Lunch?” she asks, and adds before he can answer, “no Mess Hall. Today’s special is Luau Redbat, I checked. Somewhere off campus.”

The old hydrofoil ferries, beloved of tourists, are running again, and over McCoy’s weak objections Uhura puts his communicator into emergency mode and pushes him onto one.

Halfway across the bay the fog stops like a magician’s trick and they’re in bright sunshine, the first McCoy feels like he’s had on his face in a week. They go to a little Mediterranean place in Sausalito with a grape arbor and fat clay pots brimming with grey sage and red geraniums. It’s lovely but nearly deserted, even on this fine day; so many have fled the city, and McCoy wonders how many of them will come back.

Uhura orders bread and olives for the table and a bottle of Orvieto. They’ve picked a table that faces Richardson Bay, away from the maimed skyline of San Francisco. McCoy watches a bead of water slide down the side of his glass and feels the corners of his mouth turn down.

“Don’t feel guilty,” Uhura says, reading his mind. “Us being miserable isn’t going to make any of this better.”

“I know. It’s worse than that; I feel like I have to do 10 times as much living, for the people who can’t. And I just don’t have the energy for it. Goddamn brass aren’t helping, either; when I ask how come I can’t return to duty, I get are a bunch of sorry excuses.”

“Count yourself lucky,” Uhura says. “I’ve probably given 20 hours of testimony in the last week. This thing’s going to drag on for a long time. The only thing moving fast is senior command, away from Admiral Marcus.”

“And that’s another thing,” McCoy says, jabbing the air with a breadstick. “How come they haven’t called me? I know everybody forgets about Medical during an attack, but I did--you know, stuff.”

Uhura gives a little snort. “I know you did. I did plenty of 'stuff' myself. They haven’t said it point-blank, but I think they’re suspicious of anyone who had contact with--with him.” A passing cloud throws the table into shadow, and for a moment McCoy feels like she’s summoned Khan like the Devil in an old story. “That could be the reason, though--him giving you his blood, I mean.”

“Giving? He didn’t give me anything.”

Uhura frowns and drops her voice, even though the only other couple on the terrace are clearly too wrapped up in each other to be eavesdropping. “He said he did. In the transcripts, I mean--he hasn’t testified publicly. But he said that he was the one who told you about what his blood could do, and that once we had him back on the ship, he let you take it.”

“No,” McCoy says. There’s a sudden, sharp pain between his eyes; he doesn’t want to think about Khan and his infinitely complex machinations. “No, no, no. I found out about the blood by--accident, I guess. Regular ol’ curiosity. And we took his blood. Spock helped hold him down; he must have told you that.”

“It’s been in our best interest not to tell each other too much,” Uhura says with a tight smile. “When it comes to Jim, Spock has a hard time controlling his emotions, no matter what he says. Also, he’s a terrible liar. Which is strange, because he corroborated what Khan said.”

“What, that Khan gave us his blood all wrapped up like a birthday present?” McCoy’s puzzlement turns to outright disbelief. “Why would he say that? Why would either of them say that?”

“Khan may want leverage. It’d be awfully hard to get rid of someone whose blood has the power to cure diseases. By the way, he’s claiming that he’s the only one of the Augments who has it, that he developed it himself. Sorry, doctor--if the Commission of Inquiry believes him, you won’t be going into the medical history books.”

“Fine with me, but then why Spock?”

“I think he learned something from the Nibiru inquiry. Something like Don’t throw your shipmates under a hoverbus.”

“Ah.” McCoy isn’t sure what to do with this information, as his resentment of Spock has been simmering nicely. “Thing is, if they call me, I’m going to have to tell the truth.”

“Maybe they won’t ask? Not about the particulars, anyway. And if they don’t, my advice is not to tell them.”

“Oh, really?” McCoy cocks an eyebrow at her. “Are you getting cynical about Starfleet Command, Lieutenant?”

“Not enough to outright lie. But Len, they’re desperate--this is a first-order fuck up. Starfleet’s probably riddled with spies, secret organizations--it’s going to take years to sort out. They could pin it all on Marcus, but I have a feeling they’re looking to spread it around. Please don’t make their job any easier.”

“Lucky everybody always forgets about the doctor,” McCoy says gloomily, reaching for the bottle of wine. “Guess we should be glad Jim’s not around for this. He never has learned to keep his mouth shut.”

The corners of Uhura’s mouth twitch up. “Here’s to Jim coming back to cause trouble soon,” she says, and clinks her glass against his. McCoy manages to find the appetite for his plate of fettuccine with pesto, feeling lighter out of the shadow of the city despite all the talk of Khan and doom.

“You know who I think I feel worst for out of all of this?” Uhura says. “Among the living, I mean? Carol Marcus.”

McCoy realizes, guiltily, that he hasn’t thought about Carol since they got back. “Have you seen her? How’s she holding up?”

“How anyone would if their father was the greatest villain in Starfleet history. She wants to go home, but they won’t let her until the inquiry is over. She sends her best, by the way--she wanted to see Jim but she wasn’t sure if she’d be welcome.”

“Of course she would. By me, anyway. I liked her--very bright woman. Thought she’d make a nice addition to the crew, if only so’s she could tell Spock he’s wrong now and then.”

“I’ll let her know you said that.” Uhura pats McCoy’s sleeve in gratitude. “And now, can I talk you into sharing a tartuffo?”

“I’m in,” McCoy says, but not before stealing a glance over his shoulder and across the bay at the city, shrouded in fog, dust and hovering craft like a nightmare that won’t end.

Day 9

McCoy begins his day at Jim’s bedside, sipping coffee and watching a Kalkan serial drama on his padd when he isn’t watching Jim. Doctors and nurses drift in and out, greeting him with polite professionalism and then ignoring him. He has no idea why he feels compelled to be here day after day, or how many days his life can remain in stasis, but of all the alternatives, only one is welcome. For the rest, he’d rather stay in the familiar punctuated quiet of a hospital, soothed by the steady rise and fall of Jim’s living breath.

By mid-morning he’s feeling brave enough to look at the news feeds, and almost immediately shuts them off again. With the injured attended to and the worst of the damage under control, it’s turned into a feeding frenzy of blame; even the Federation News Network, that staid voice of officialdom, is falling off its chair at each new revelation of Admiral Marcus’s crimes and conspiracies.

He thinks of Carol, and messages Uhura for her contact key--not the official Fleet one that’s probably a constant screech of interview requests, but the one she gives to friends. Even so, it’s hours before she answers his friendly, nonspecific inquiry with So nice to hear from you! Do you have time for coffee? followed by a map reference.

The cafe she picks isn’t one of the rustic, burlap-and-brick places favored by the students, or even the gleaming replimats that attract the officers; it’s a drab and empty Denebian bakery on Beulah Street. McCoy finds her sitting alone at a corner table, looking small and pale in an oversized sweater, its azure blue color a reminder of less troubled time.

“Thanks, Leonard,” she says, rising and giving him a surprise peck on the cheek. “Len? Leo? I don’t know what you prefer. We never got to that bit.”

“We were too busy trying not to set off bombs. Len will do fine.” It’s not a nickname he usually favors, but he likes the way she says it, clipped and precise, with a slight roll of the tongue. “Interesting place.”

“Not popular on a Tuesday afternoon, though I hear the starch cubes are rather good,” Carol says, nodding toward the glutinous goodies turning dry-edged under an infrared light.

“Hmm,” McCoy says, pretending to deliberate. “You having anything?”

“Just a coffee, I think. The pastries are a bit gritty for my taste; I’m not really in the mood.”

McCoy can’t think of any question that would be appropriate, so he lets Carol talk.

“You don’t know how happy I was to get your text,” she says. “My friends have all been very sweet, but everything they say is wrong. And my family--they put my mother in an inpatient counseling program. They were afraid--” She chokes a little, taking a swig of coffee to cover it up. “Anyway, it’s all gotten to be a bit much. All I want is an offworld assignment, but they won’t let me leave until the hearings are over, which will be the 10th of Never. Oh, God--this all sounds so miserably self-centered, I know.” She brushes his sleeve in apology. “Thousands of people dead, and I haven’t even asked about Jim--”

“Just because others have it worse, doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to have feelings.” It makes Leonard feel guilty for the bubble he’s been living in, maybe using Jim as a shield against dealing with everything else. “And Jim’s--the same. They may try bringing him out of the coma in a couple of days, or weeks--I don’t know. But I know what you mean: the whole damn world comes apart in a day, and you can’t ever put it back together the way it was. A doctor’s not supposed to say that, but it’s the truth.”

There’s a long moment of gloomy, coffee-sipping silence, during which McCoy sees Jim’s still face in the depths of his mug.

“Aren’t we a pair?” he says after a while, trying to rouse himself to gallantry. “Looks like you picked the wrong person to cheer you up.”

“I’m not sure I was looking to be cheered up.” She’s looking down, but she’s got those bright, undimmable eyes, so like Jim’s. “I surprised myself, wanting company. For the last week, all I wanted was to be left alone; the press were camped outside my flat, until Security ran them off. I can’t imagine what my neighbors thought. It’s just around the corner, you know. My flat."

“I didn’t.” He doesn’t know anything about her, except what he’s read in the press--the usual Starfleet resume of glittering accomplishments, plus a famous father.

“Mmm. It’s a bit small, but it’s got a balcony and--” She stops, and McCoy’s conscious of a reset, her head tilting with that birdlike quickness as she makes a decision. “Would you like to come up to my flat?”

She leaves the invitation undecorated by offers of more coffee or views of the bay. McCoy briefly considers and then discards the idea that he’d be taking advantage; she’s not out of her mind or desperate, just as frustrated, as he is, with the lack of anything to do to make any of it better.

“Sure,” he says. “Why not?”

Carol’s flat may be big or small; McCoy doesn’t see much of it. They’re taking each others’ clothes off before the door closes. There’s a speed born of nervous energy, but without real passion to drive them forward, there are also awkward pauses: a disjointed moment when McCoy hesitates before cupping the smooth curves of Carol’s behind, another before she slides a small, deft hand into his underwear to rearrange him before tugging it off.

Her bed is pale yellow and her skin is so fine-grained and perfect it almost seems inhuman, but she’s all flesh and blood in the way she kisses him, over his collarbone and across his pecs, down his tender sides and the hollow of his pelvis, anywhere but on the mouth. He lets her stay on top, lets her take whatever she wants, because whatever the motives, it’s blissfully distracting and it’s real, the first thing in more than a week that’s felt that way. He takes the distraction and defers the rest--her beauty, her crappy situation, the fact that her father is the greatest monster in Starfleet history. She slides down onto him with a look of purest relief that melts into blissful blankness. The sun breaks out from behind the clouds and floods the apartment with light and it’s all McCoy sees behind his closed eyes. After what seems like a long time, Carol tightens on him and cries out, and he comes himself with as much discretion as he can, not wanting to break the fragile peace.

She withdraws and reclines on his chest, face flushed and hair tangled, looking like a living thing at last. She pats his sweat-damp belly and says, “Thank you, Len. You’re a good friend.”

Lulled with endorphins and sunshine and skin, he’s drifting off to his first comfortable sleep in days when his commlink chirps. His heart skips a beat--Jim--and he lunges for it.

“What is it?” Carol asks drowsily.

“The Commission of Inquiry. They’ve called me to testify tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry,” she mutters into his chest. “It’s just a bunch of sour old admirals. What could they do to you, anyway, after what you’ve been through?”

McCoy runs a strand of Carol’s hair between his fingers and lets her fall asleep on his chest, wondering if it’s better or worse to have nothing left to lose.

Day 10

McCoy reports as instructed at 1100. The Starfleet Commission of Etcetera has set up shop in the amphitheater of Dyson Hall, whose multi-story windows admit a view of heavy grey clouds with occasional and appropriately dramatic flashes of lightning. The cavernous room is mostly empty; there’s no peanut gallery, just a handful of ‘Fleet underlings ferrying beverages and a few burly Security types, eyes darting around the room.

The Commission is made up mostly of retired admirals, none of whom McCoy knows by sight but a few of whom he knows by reputation. The Chair is Telav zh’Esh, an Andorian and something of a legend, at least among a few of McCoy’s former instructors who served under zhe on the USS Uruk. McCoy, waiting his turn in the front row and feeling every itchy centimeter of his dress uniform, is reminded of the old saying: There’s no such thing as a free lunch, an honest politician, or an Andorian without an opinion. McCoy doubts there’ll be much of his career or his professional reputation left by the time zh’Esh is done, but at least zhe’s likely to put him out of his misery quickly.

When the Commissioners file back in from their morning break (McCoy hadn’t been allowed to listen to the earlier testimony), a young lieutenant with a lawyerly air waves McCoy over to the witness’s conference table, which bears a padd and a pitcher of water..

“Dr. McCoy,” zh’Esh begins, “you have been summoned here to provide us with information concerning certain events aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise during its recent unauthorized mission to Qo’noS. This is not a military court and you are not being charged--yet--with any violation of Starfleet orders, but as an officer you are expected to fully cooperate. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, uh, zha.”

“Sir will suffice,” zhe says with a tight smile, and a twitch of the antenna; McCoy can’t remember whether that’s a good sign or a bad. “Now, Doctor, we wish to focus on the two interactions you had with Khan Noonien Singh. During the first, you drew blood from him, is that correct?”

“Yes, sir. Khan appeared to be human, but he was extremely strong, and very resistant to injury. We needed to find out what he was in order to handle him.” This prompts a lot of frenzied note-taking, even though McCoy is sure he’s being recorded down to the molecular level.

“And what did you find?”

“That he had the normal human blood components, but a number of novel ones, as well. He had an abundance of granulocytes that resembled neutrophils.”

No one bothers to ask him what these white blood cells are or do; zh’Esh merely nods, as if ticking off a correct answer. “And did you ask him about this?”

McCoy frowns at the odd question. “No, there wasn’t time. I didn’t have much interest in talking to him, anyway; he was--”

A tall, white-haired woman whose name card reads Adm. Paredes leans forward in her chair. “He was what, Doctor?”

McCoy fishes for a word, aware that he’s sweating under the bright lights. “I don’t rightly know how to say it. Disturbing, maybe? Something about his voice, and the way he could twist words. He knew how to say what you wanted to hear.”

“And what things did he tell you, Dr. McCoy?” McCoy doesn’t recognized the burly, bearded human with the sharp-edged voice and no name card. “Did he tell you his blood could raise the dead?”

A ripple of consternation goes through the panel, and McCoy uses it to get a grip on himself. Here it comes, he thinks, but zh’Esh raises zhe’s hand for silence.

“Please,” zhe says, “this is a panel of inquiry. We are not here to level accusations, no matter how dramatic they may sound. Now, Doctor, let us proceed. You analyzed Khan’s blood and recorded your findings. Did you do pursue your inquiry any further?”

“Yes, sir. I had a tribble. That is, I still have it, but I, uh, realize that tribbles are banned in San Francisco since the recent unpleasantness--I mean, the unpleasantness with the tribbles. A friend is keeping it for me. Off planet.” As lies go, it’s not a very big one, although the friend is Scotty, and “off planet” is an improvised walk-in refrigerator at his house in Half Moon Bay.

“Very well, Dr. McCoy, you have a tribble.” McCoy can see Admiral Paredes smirking. “What of it?”

“The tribble was dead, sir. Mostly dead, anyway; it expired from old age. I kept it in cryostasis just in case--” McCoy knows it will sound ridiculous to say that he was essentially keeping it for sentimental reasons. “They’re interesting subjects. They have extremely high metabolisms and an extraordinarily high rate of cell death and regeneration. I was curious to see what effect the novel blood factor would have on the tribble. So I made a serum from Khan’s blood, and injected it.”

“And what happened then?” The panel seems riveted; McCoy’s never had the attention of so many admirals at once.

“Things got a bit busy, sir. As I’m sure you know.”

“Very well. Let’s move on from the tribble to more pressing matters.” Admiral zh’Esh leads him through the whole sorry affair--from Qo'noS to Marcus to the moment he’d give a lot to not live over. He’s spent the past week actively trying not to think about it, but it’s haunted his dreams, appeared without warning in windows and on blank walls: Jim’s face, so young and naked with honest fear.

I’m sorry.

He blinks away the stinging water in his eyes, determined not to lose it in front of the admirals, trying to concentrate on what zh’Esh is saying, when the bearded human interrupts again.

“--And so your shipmates brought Khan back, not to the brig at Starfleet, but to the Enterprise, so you use Khan’s blood on Captain Kirk. Did it occur to you for one minute that doing so risked letting Khan loose again? And what about the other Augment that you removed from his cryotube?” The man’s voice rises, and he’s leaning so far forward in his chair that McCoy thinks he might make a lunge for him.

“I know it was irregular, Admiral, but under the circumstances--”

“Half of San Francisco on fire, a genocidal madman on the loose, Starfleet officers committing acts of sabotage and mutiny?” McCoy glances at zh’Esh, hoping for help, but zhe’s conferring with a colleague and seems inclined to let the belligerent questioning continue. “And you expect us to believe this revival of Kirk was a happy coincidence as a result of your medical curiosity?”

McCoy, unable to give anything more than the truth, holds his hands out in appeal. “I don’t know what else it would be, sir.”

“Admiral Marcus committed acts of highest treason because Khan gave him what he wanted--weapons capable of starting, if not winning, a war with the Klingons. What did he offer you, Doctor?” The man’s voice is arch, insinuating; it feels like a performance, but McCoy will be damned if he knows for whose benefit. “Was it the secret to a powerful drug whose discovery would make you one of the greatest doctors of our age? Because I find the chain of events as you describe them difficult to believe. Who conducts medical experiments in the middle of a battle? Who thinks of trying to revive a clearly dead man?”

“I do! I did it.” McCoy’s voice sounds as angry as he feels, but he doesn’t care. At least zh’Esh’s antennae have swivelled back to attention. “Because I’m a doctor, and that’s what doctors do.”

It’s a half truth at best; he wouldn’t have done it for anyone, he knows that--not put other people’s lives in danger, not tried something that defied medical knowledge and medical ethics to boot.

“What a nice platitude,” the bearded man says, rising from his chair and putting his hands behind his back like a prosecutor. “But you’re going to have to do better than that. Khan is a superhuman genius, and you’re--what? A medical officer with a year in space and a predilection for experimenting on tribbles?

He’d promised himself to be honest because that was the only possible way out of the concentric rings of lies building up around this whole mess, and because it’s how he was raised to be. He was willing to let Starfleet think he was a quack and an easily manipulated idiot and whatever else they wanted, because it seemed like a small price to pay. But it turns out now that that’s not the truth that the bearded man wants.

A long moment passes, with the eyes of the commissioners nowhere else but on him. He wracks his brain, trying to think what will make sense to them, what will be enough to explain what it felt like to have Jim’s lifeless body under his hands, its heat returning to the universe, the molecules and atoms that made up Jim Kirk shortly to follow, that awful entropy taking him where McCoy couldn’t follow.

“I’m Jim Kirk’s friend,” he says finally, in desperation. “I did it because it was Jim, and because he didn’t deserve to die that way. I did it for Jim because I would have done anything, anything for Jim Kirk not to be dead.”

The bearded man’s eyes narrow, but he sits back down. Admiral zh’Esh’s antennae turn an unreadable shade of blue.

“Thank you, Doctor,” zhe says quietly. “I think that will be enough for today.”

McCoy’s shoulders slump with relief. It may not be the whole truth, but it’s as much of it as he can put into words, and as much as the admirals deserve to hear.

Part 4 >>

The Immeasurable In-Between (Kirk/McCoy, R) part 2

2013-08-01T00:36:01Z

<
<< Part 1

Day 5

McCoy’s developed a sixth sense for when Spock is lurking behind him, maybe because he frequently is. Most of the bridge crew have cycled through during visiting hours--Jim’s bedside table holds a plant with orange leaves left by Sulu, and the remains of a sandwich Uhura brought McCoy from the commissary--but Spock’s presence is a nagging near-constant.

“Dr. Boyce informs me that Jim’s condition has stabilized to the point where his status is no longer considered ‘critical’,” Spock says, addressing the space to the left of McCoy’s ear.

“Oh, does he? That’s interesting, he hasn’t told me. Maybe he’s been too busy fielding questions from random commanders.”

“I did not mean to intrude on your area of professional expertise,” Spock says huffily. “I saw him at this morning’s meeting of the Commission of Inquiry. Jim’s outcome has many strategic implications.”

“No doubt. I’m glad the Admiralty isn’t letting a little thing like the destruction of San Francisco get in the way of their long-term planning.” McCoy’s well aware that his prickles are intended to deflect, but the topic of the Admiralty makes him uneasy. If they’re probing into Jim’s medical condition, it can’t be long before they’ll want to inquire into certain ethical violations committed by the CMO. It’s not that he fears the Admiralty--post-Marcus, and with the exception of Pike, he’s very much feeling that the Admiralty can go hang itself--it’s that he has no idea what he’s going to say.

“You may also wish to know that they also expressed their hopes for Jim’s speedy recovery,” Spock continues. “Ensign Chekov and Lieutenant Commander Scott also wanted me to convey these sentiments, as they have not seen you for several days.”

“Yeah, well I’ve been busy.” McCoy, aware that he’s mumbling, tries again with more conviction. “I’ve had a few more things than bullpucky Starfleet inquiries to attend to.”

“I see.” Spock does a flyby of Jim’s bed, dark eyes sweeping over the biodisplays that ring him as if he’s some great ship at spacedock. “It was my understanding that your credentials with the hospital had not yet been reinstated. Therefore I do not believe that you are busy with your medical practice. I also do not believe that Jim would want you to spend so much of your time at his bedside when it serves no practical purpose.”

“Oh, yeah? That’s something you’d know, wouldn’t you, since you’ve been his best friend since the day before yesterday.” McCoy is taken aback by his own anger, but he’ll be damned if he’s going to back down, not with Spock giving him that look of bemused surprise, better suited to a grant review board than a formerly dead friend’s bedside.

“I do not believe I have not tried to claim that status.”

“You--” McCoy clenches his fists to keep himself from sputtering. “I don’t think you really even liked him, before or after he saved your life.”

“My liking him was immaterial; he is my commanding officer. However, I admit that the prospect of his imminent death caused me to reconsider his many fine qualities.” Spock pauses, and frowns. “That was a failure of logic on my part.”

“A failure of--” McCoy feels like a phaser set on overload. But there’s something in Spock’s face, as he looks at Jim’s, maybe a wonder at how a brittle working relationship had turned into friendship and then into something McCoy and maybe even Spock can’t put a name to. And he remembers that Spock cried.

“Yeah, well,” McCoy says, releasing a breath. “I call that regret, and it’s pretty common. That’s why it’s better to get everything in the open while someone’s still alive. Dead is too late.”

There’s a long pause where they both turn to contemplate Jim’s still body. McCoy is reminded of the barbaric old custom of viewing preserved dead bodies and feels a chill across his neck.

“Both Nyota and Jim were angry at me for my willingness to sacrifice my life to save the Nibirans,” Spock says unexpectedly into the silence. “I admit I do not understand this, as I thought humans acknowledge the evolutionary benefits of altruism. And that such a death may be considered good, as Khan said.”

“Don’t quote that bastard to me,” McCoy snaps. “There’s no such thing as a good death.” Seeing Spock’s almost imperceptible flinch, he adds, “Like most human things, it’s complicated. Society may say you’re very noble; everybody loves a hero. But the people close to you may disagree.”

“Surak teaches the logic of the greatest good for the greatest number. If more lives than one can be saved by one’s own death, then it is one’s obligation to give it up. But you are suggesting that the value of my life to Nyota and Jim should have been given greater weight.”

“Because they had to live with the consequences. Choices like that aren’t independent variables. Now, I’m not saying you made a wrong decision--I’m one of those folks who happens to believe self-sacrifice is admirable--but people may not appreciate it if you act like the choice was easy.”

Spock cocks his head, considering. “Therefore, the socially acceptable behavior was for me to perform the same action, but with a greater appearance of regret?”

“Oh, you’re hopeless,” McCoy says, surrendering to his annoyance. “I’m going to get a cup of coffee. Maybe you can arrange to be gone when I get back.”

Day 6

Jim sits in the command chair, leaning forward in tense expectancy, gripping the arms. The viewscreen is black; McCoy can’t see whatever threat has riveted Jim’s attention, but his scan shows the effects on Jim’s vitals: elevated heart rate, increased oxygen absorption. McCoy drops a hand onto his shoulder but Jim shrugs it off; he’s coiled like a snake, waiting to strike.

When Jim’s in the chair, McCoy is never sure whether to be scared for him or of him. He’s got all the power of the great ship at his fingertips, but the thought doesn’t calm McCoy the way it did with Pike. Jim’s unpredictability may be his greatest strength but it’s scary as hell, and McCoy watches Jim’s eyes go cold and his jaw tighten with stomach-clenching expectation of the myriad horrors that lurk in the darkness...

It’s later, and the Thing, whatever it was, is defeated. The lights are low in Jim’s cabin and he strips slowly, letting the gold tunic fall to the floor. McCoy is in bed already, naked, the non-dream part of his brain wondering why he doesn’t go to help Jim, undress him and kiss him and run his hands over Jim’s tired body. But his dream-self just waits, watches with jaded appreciation at each swath of pale flesh being revealed, the sturdy polyx fabric of Jim’s uniform trousers sliding over smooth muscle as the captain of the Enterprise does, indeed, take his pants off one leg at a time.

Jim half-slides, half crawls into his own bed while McCoy relaxes, expansive, hands behind his head, erection complacent, secure in the knowledge it’s about to get some attention. And Jim wastes no time, going down on him with enthusiastic obedience as McCoy, from his impossible dream-vantage point, contemplates his ass and what he plans to do with it.

“Suck harder. No hands, just your mouth.” McCoy doesn’t have to say it, he just thinks it, and Jim is pulling him into a vortex of wet bliss, golden head bobbing up and down, pink lips warm and stretched wide. He feels like he could stay hard forever, feels with a surge of giddy power that he never has to come, that as long as he stays in Jim’s mouth everything will be perfect and unchanging.

McCoy wakes with a dry mouth, a guilty conscience, and a raging hard-on. Bad enough that he dreamed about sex with Jim, but the way he treated him--like some empty vessel for his pleasure--makes him want to take the ancient copy of Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams that his daddy gave him for a graduation present and drive a stake through its heart.

He’d had sex with Jim, of that there was no doubt, but it was something they’d given each other, out of desperation and exhaustion and limited options. A gift, freely shared, not just taken for pleasure. But it had been pleasure, a lot of it, as McCoy’s assertive cock reminds him when he gets up and tries to take a piss. Maybe it’s a gift or a curse from Jim’s bed, whose durable foam has bounced back, resilient, from how many nights of lusty play McCoy can only guess, and whose cool sheets (in his imagination, anyway) still smell like Jim.

McCoy drinks a glass of water, tells the thermostat to drop another degree, and flops back against the pillows, wide awake. In resignation more than anticipation he wraps his right hand around his cock, squeezes his eyes shut, and tries to summon an appropriate image--Jocelyn, naked and laughing; an ensign from the Tripoli, giving him a good-natured hand job in a fresher on Starbase 37; a stranger of indeterminate gender who’d smelled like lilacs on Klidos IV. His sexual experiences in space have been infrequent, but not so much that he should feel this hard up, in the midst of a tragedy that should be draining his libido along with his energy. But nothing will satisfy his stubborn erection but the thought of Jim, the way he was in his quarters in orbit above Anatereon.

For 30 hours the Anatereons kept them in fear for their ship, their lives; through endless negotiation and threats, demonstrations of power followed at neck-cracking speed with gifts and promises of friendship, illusions and headgames, McCoy filling his hypo while Scotty filled the torpedo bays, with stimulants and sedatives and anti-psychotics. In the end, the Anatereons let let them fly free, alive but with no satisfactory conclusion, no contact and nothing to report except that there was another powerful race out there that didn’t seem to like them.

McCoy follows Jim to his quarters, worried about Jim’s mental state when he probably should be be worried about his own. Jim’s face is ashen, slack with exhaustion; there are dark circles under his eyes and darker ones ringing his irises, usually so blue but now as faded as the rest of him. McCoy’s exhausted brain has a strange idea that that’s what the Anatereons wanted from them: their color, their vitality.

He makes a move to scan Jim, but Jim catches his wrist, twitches the beginnings of a smile that collapses in on itself. A moment later Jim is crying in his arms, quiet and miserable, hopeless of relief. All he can do is stroke Jim’s back, shaking and damp with sweat; all he thinks he can do, until Jim begins to kiss him.

There’s no surprise to it; it feels right, and comfortable, Jim’s lips so warm and soft it couldn’t be anything but easy. The way to bed is like a garden path at twilight, calm and gentle, their bodies already familiar to each other. This is what McCoy craves, not mystery and passion, but the comfort of intimate knowledge. They know how to take care of each other, and what they don’t know, they can guess. When McCoy falls asleep that night in Jim’s bed, with Jim’s lax arm across his chest and Jim’s soft, regular breaths inches away, he knows he’s done something good and right. And then morning comes, and the day after, and the Enterprise flies off to its next adventure, and McCoy, from a failure of courage or imagination, never follows up, but lets them both relapse back into a friendship that’s close and valuable and still only a shadow of what he wants.

McCoy grips himself tight and finishes with a stuttering cry that there’s no one there to hear.

Day 7

McCoy wakes up, sweaty and cotton-mouthed, to find his father standing over him.

It takes a moment to realize that he’s not dreaming, and another to register that he’s naked and pull the covers over himself. He should be surprised, but what he mostly feels is an echo of adolescent shame. His first words--”How did you find me?” don’t help.

“Wasn’t so difficult,” David McCoy says, perching on the bed and oblivious to his discomfort. “I told Starfleet I was next-of-kin and they have you chipped, I guess. The building manager let me in when I showed him my medical credentials. For the record, in case he asks, I am worried about your mental health.”

“I’m fine,” McCoy protests. “I sent you messages saying so.”

“Two whole text messages, when the Enterprise came home looking like Swiss cheese and half the city’s a smoking ruin. And then you don’t answer your comm.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“Oh, yes, I can see that.” David’s dark eyes rake over the tangled sheets, and McCoy takes a moment to actually look at him. The shock of white hair is as thick as ever, but his father looks thinner than when he last saw him, more than a year ago. The McCoy side of the family runs to tall and rangy, but there’s an unfamiliar spareness about him, and circles under his eyes that McCoy hopes he didn’t put there.

“Dad, I’m sorry,” he says. “If I worried you, I mean. I should have thought about it, but things have been just so--I don’t know, so strange, and I kind of forgot anything was happening outside of--”

“I know,” David says, stopping him with a hand on his knee. “That’s why I’m here. Now can you make me a cup of coffee? I saw two patients first thing this morning and I couldn’t sleep a wink on that blasted pneumorail.”

McCoy can, and even manages to scrounge up day-old sourdough and butter and set it on the glass table in Jim’s dining nook. The view is decidedly stormy; the slice of ocean he can see is iron gray with angry white foam, and rain dashes against the window in hard, cold drops. At least it will help settle the dust, he thinks.

“Nice place,” David says. “Do you live here?”

“No, it’s Jim’s.”

“I know.” David takes the time to level a teaspoon of sugar before dumping it in his cup. “The super told me. I meant, do you live here, too? I don’t see your books.”

McCoy shifts uncomfortably. “No, I don’t have a place of my own, not while I’m supposed to be on active duty. I left my things here, and Jim--why do you think I’d be living with Jim, anyway?”

“No special reason.” David blows on his coffee. “Just thought that you and I were of a mind about living alone.”

McCoy’s grabs at the excuse for a diversion. “How is mom, anyway? You heard from her lately?”

“Climbing in the Himalayas, last I heard. I left her a message that you were alright, but she’ll probably get it before she gets the news about this whole mess.”

“Must be nice to be somewhere you don’t have to deal with it.”

“Oh, now, sonny boy, don’t be mean. She didn’t go there to get away from us. Not from you, anyway. Getting away from me was just a bonus.”

Leonard marvels at how David can say it without bitterness. Leonard’s own divorce is almost as old as his father’s, and he has decades less to show for his marriage. But David stayed in the same house with the same dog, and Leonard joined the Foreign Legion to escape the constant reminders of his failure. His parents’ divorce wasn’t over anything in particular except his mother getting tired of being in one place with David, a lovable, immovable post.

“Yeah, well, I don’t see it myself,” Leonard says, clearing his throat. “Running all over the galaxy hasn’t bought me anything but trouble. Maybe I should have just stayed home.”

It could be the last word that does it, or maybe the thought that David had left his beloved wingback chair to come across a continent to make sure his wayward son is alright. Or maybe it’s just the sight of those fine-boned doctor’s hands stirring too much sugar his coffee, the way they had so many quiet evenings, when McCoy’s worst problem was a bad grade or a pretty girl making fun of him. Whatever it is, he feels a tight ball of something dark and hard unwind in his chest, more than he can pass off with a laugh or a sigh, and so there’s nothing for him to do but begin to weep.

He hides his face in his arms, out of shame or some childish habit, and hears David’s spoon drop on the glass table with a metallic clink. Trying to stop so as not to alarm his father only makes it worse, and he ends up choking out muffled sobs into the elbow of his uniform shirt. It feels terrible and like a wonderful luxury at the same time.

“Oh, son,” David says, patting his arm, and when McCoy raises his head to try to reassure him, David pulls him into his arms in an awkward screech of chairs and arrangement of bony limbs.

McCoy rests his hot, tear-streaked face against his father’s shoulder and feels calm and sane for the first time in a week.

“That’s good, that’s good,” David says, unembarrassed. He’s a practical man but a kind one, and tears are the last bodily fluid that would disturb him. When McCoy raises his head at last, David pulls a monogrammed handkerchief from his pocket and hands it to him.

“You should come home,” he says. “This has been sheer hell for you. I don’t just mean the business with the city blowing up, I mean the whole thing, ever since you shipped out. I know why you wanted to get away, but that’s over now; Jocelyn’s in Chicago and that high school buddy of yours, Kyle Wilmer--wasn’t he studying to be an architect?--he bought the Simms place and is moving back. There are at least a dozen new kids in walking distance, and I can’t keep up this pace forever. Come home and take over the practice.”

“I can’t, Dad. You know that.” McCoy rubs his wet face with the sleeve of his shirt and feels 12 years old. “You may find it hard to believe, but I like what I’m doing. It’s not just all the travel, it’s the people. They’re the best in the world at what they do. This is where I want to be.” He hopes it sounds convincing, even if his voice is rough with tears. It’s not the truth--the truth is that he’s here because of Jim, doomed to follow him across the galaxy, the hopeless way he’d chased Jocelyn; caught up to her, and lost her again. Jim had tried to escape him through the gates of death itself, and McCoy had refused to give up. He’s not sure if his tenacity is noble or pathetic, but he gets a hint from the resigned half-smile on his father’s face.

“Alright, then,” David says, collecting their coffee cups and giving his son a final squeeze of the shoulder. “I just hope he’s worth it.”

Part 3 >>

The Immeasurable In-Between (Kirk/McCoy, R) part 1

2013-07-10T00:52:34Z

Written for the Regeneration Challenge at jim_and_bones. Thanks to sangueuk for the prompt! Also HUGE thanks to mga1999 for beta reading, cheerleading and all-around awesomeness. If she's not on your short list of people who would be cool to know on the Internet, she should be.

Summary: McCoy fills the 14 days between Khan and when Jim wakes up in San Francisco. Xtreme attempts at canon reconciliation ahead!

Content: Medical details about Jim's condition, non-explicit descriptions of injuries and destruction, sex (in the next part, anyway; involving McCoy with himself and briefly with Carol Marcus).

Day 1

“Hold still, if you don’t want me to hurt--oh, fine, don’t hold still.”

McCoy gropes Khan’s cubital fossa for a vein and jabs the needle in before being entirely sure it won’t roll. There’s no hiss of pain--the son of a bitch is wearing a crocodile’s smile--but McCoy enjoys it anyway.

“It is likely that Starfleet will bring charges against you for unauthorized human experimentation,” Spock says, trying to hold Khan’s arm steady while Scotty’s improvised rodnium shackles do the rest. “Possibly also for mistreatment of a political prisoner.”

McCoy tapes the needle down, steps backs, and watches the bag fill with superhuman blood. He’s trembling with anticipation like the vampire Jim’s always accused him of being, begrudging every second that he’s not able to pump that magic blood into Jim’s frozen veins.

“Yeah, well, right now I don’t give a good goddamn.”

“Nor do I,” Spock says, releasing Khan’s arm with a grunt. “I was merely making an observation.”

“Don’t get your hopes up, Dr. McCoy.” Spock and McCoy are almost panting with exertion, but Khan’s voice is smooth as an oil slick. “My blood is capable of inducing rapid cell regeneration, but it is not an elixir of immortality. It cannot cure death.”

The word hangs breathless and cold in the air, seems to mingle with the hiss of the vacuum seal on the cryo tube when McCoy pops it open. There isn’t time to think or plan or ask permission or do anything but bring Jim’s temperature up high enough for his blood to liquify. Without a beating heart it won’t flow, so McCoy’s got an external defibrillator going. Meanwhile, the turbocentrifuge spins up, separating Khan’s nominally human red blood cells from the stuff that will save Jim.

“How do you know what quantity to use?” Spock asks. “Should you not conduct further experiments first?”

“That’s a definite not.” McCoy resists the urge to elbow Spock out of the way because he knows he’s worried; he’s seen the traces of tears on his cheeks. “You know this option will be gone once we hit spacedock. Besides, what am I going to do, make him worse?”

He hiccups a laugh and touches a finger to Jim’s cold cheek, trying not to think how peaceful he looks in death, dark lashes resting against his cheeks, droplets of newly melted ice in his hair. There’s nothing beautiful about death, nothing except the after-image of the Enterprise’s captain, too vibrant in life to fade quickly.

This needle he slides in carefully, into Jim’s carotid artery, the better to get the serum to his brain. Khan himself watches with detached curiosity.

“You should leave him in peace,” Khan says. “It’s a good death, to sacrifice one’s life for one’s comrades.”

“If that is the death you desire,” Spock says, “I am sure it can be arranged.”

McCoy has no attention to spare to tell them to shut up. The strange, thick elixir is creeping, slowly, into Jim and McCoy’s whole body is wound tight, waiting for a sign of life. He feels, in the seconds that pass, like Dr. Frankenstein, like a fool and a bad friend and the man in the old ghost story who wished his dead wife alive, and to his horror got exactly what he wanted. But he doesn’t stop.

A minute, more minutes pass in silence, McCoy conscious of his own living pulse, of the sinking feeling in his stomach and tightness in his heart, of the misery that won’t actually kill him no matter what he feels. Contrary to popular belief, familiarity with loss doesn’t make it an easier; there’s a moment of miserable cowardice when McCoy wishes he could slip into one of the stasis pods for a few weeks or months, long enough to avoid the funeral and the tears and the questions. And then, just as he’s ready to ask Spock to hand him a blanket to lay over the departed, one of Jim’s eyelids twitches, and the bio display lights up like a fireworks show.

“Jim!”

McCoy’s never heard a sound like that come out of Spock; for a moment it even distracts him from the man on the table, but then Jim is shivering with cold and what else McCoy can’t guess, because even if he’s solved his capital-letter problem he’s just bought himself a whole bunch of new ones. Jim’s heart rate and BP are surging past normal, his temperature is rising rapidly and his immune system, as unpredictable as the rest of him, seems to be doing its best to kill the thing that saved it. McCoy feels both razor-sharp joy and surging panic.

Luckily he’s a doctor first, before anything else. He yells orders--for his nurses, for hypos and neural scans and blood tests--with hardly a quaver in his voice. Spock, paler even than usual, steps out of his way and summons Security to take Khan back to the brig, while the son of a bitch keeps sitting there, spine ramrod straight, watching the whole scene unfold like it’s some amateur circus that’s failing to entertain him.

“There are no miracles, Doctor,” Khan says, before permitting the red shirts to take him away. “I’m sure you know that. There’s a price to be paid for everything.”

McCoy doesn’t bother to answer, just brushes his hand against rapidly warming flesh and thinks, Whatever it is, I’ll pay it. Jim, alive, is the only thing he’ll want ever again.

Day 2

The last time the Enterprise limped back to spacedock there’d been giddy relief amid the sadness, a young crew that wasn’t supposed to be there to begin with doing the impossible, with a captain who wasn’t even supposed to be on board. The ship now is a perforated ruin, its surviving crew bruised and torpedo-shocked.

Whatever else he did to patch the crew up during the hours it took Starfleet to tow them in, McCoy at least spared them one terrible thing. The crew knows that their captain survived, though the ‘Fleet honor guard waiting at the dock looks confused, especially the guy carrying the flag. McCoy wondered who on the bridge had had the presence of mind to report Kirk’s apparent death. He passes Chekov and Sulu, fighting an uphill battle to help organize the triage; they see Jim and the ghost of what didn’t happen passes across their faces before they nod to McCoy and get on with their jobs.

McCoy sticks to Jim’s anti-grav stretcher like glue, pushing it past a team of medics that want to get their hands on him (despite the fact that Medical never lost gravity), past a grim-looking gaggle of senior officers barking orders into their communicators, and into the shuttle bay, since Jim is still technically coding even though his vitals have reached some kind of weird, way-above-normal stasis.

He pulls up at the first medical transport he can lay eyes on.

“What are we looking at here?” the medic asks, giving Jim a scan; his records are in the Enterprise’s central storage, which may not be currently capable of adding 2 and 2.

There’s a heartbeat where McCoy wonders if he can skip the part about the augmented blood, as he flash-forwards to the days full of questions that are going to arise from it. But McCoy’s going to need a lot of help, and the fate of his commission is the least of his worries.

“Cardiac death following delta radiation poisoning. Massive tissue damage subsequently repaired with an unknown human blood agent, allowing resuscitation of the patient.” McCoy finishes with a nod, fairly satisfied at his clinical description of died and rose from the dead.

The medic’s professional poker face breaks a little and she pauses her scan to flip a lock of red hair out of her eyes. She can’t be more than Jim’s age, probably another of the bright-eyed recruits who signed up after Vulcan. McCoy wonders how long it will take to rebuild Starfleet this time.

“Okay, Priority 1, then. He’ll be taken straight to the Internal Medicine ICU.” She injects the code chip into the pale, waxy skin above Jim’s clavicle. McCoy doesn’t move; he’s aware enough to realize that he’s half in shock, that he’s sweating even though he feels as cool as Jim’s skin, as space itself, that he wants desperately to do something foolish and human like brush a hand over Jim’s hair and wish him luck, but he’s being held in place by more than the medic’s bright eyes.

“Uh, sir?” she says. “We’ll take good care of him. You probably want to get back to the evac.” She gestures to the tumult behind him, and McCoy remembers that he’s CMO, that he’s Jim’s CMO.

“You’re right,” he says after moment. “I have other patients.” Jim disappears into the interior of the shuttle and it’s the last of him McCoy sees for a good, long while.

*****

McCoy doesn’t want to eat, but somebody--one of the endless, bustling somebodies--puts him in a chair and sets a tray in front of him. McCoy doesn’t want to shower, but he gives himself a perfunctory go-over with a manual sonic when someone points him toward a fresher. He doesn’t want to sleep--can’t sleep--and luckily everybody seems to have forgotten about that; there’s no night in the city any more, so as soon as he’s changed into a clean planetside uniform, McCoy heads over to Medical.

Swiping his finger over the scanner in the security kiosk does nothing--McCoy guesses a lot of Starfleet’s central computers have been taken down--so he enters as a visitor, a slow and tedious progression through through layers of staff and medics. The waiting room is full to bursting with the injured (McCoy helps briefly with triage) and people trying to find loved ones. At last, McCoy finds his.

“Ah, Dr. McCoy. I’ve been expecting you.” Even without her nametag, McCoy would recognize Dr. Adeola Kosoko, holder of the Stader Chair in Trauma Medicine and someone who’d had a prominent place on McCoy’s Do not piss off list at the Academy. Dr. Kosoko is tall, of indeterminate old age, and looking less harried by her massive caseload than McCoy feels with his one.

“I came as fast as I could. Goddamned computers--” Calm, he reminds himself, deep breaths. I want to see Jim. “I’m sorry. You know everything’s pretty much gone to hell. How is he?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.” She parts the curtains and there Jim is, rigged up on a biobed, pale as the sheets. A day later and stubble is scratching at McCoy’s chin where the beard suppressor is wearing off, but Jim’s face is as tranquil and unchanging as if he were still frozen. So many things about the situation frighten McCoy, but right now the one that has him scared is how easily it would be to lose track of Jim, his vibrant friend now a helpless body adrift on a sea of chaos-weakened bureaucracy.

Dr. Kosoko taps the padd in her hand, summoning his attention. “It says here that you tried a, hmm, experimental treatment on Captain Kirk. And that this experimental treatment reversed the effects of terminal Delta radiation poisoning.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Terminal,” Dr. Kosoko repeats again, looking at him sharply. “A massive exposure that should have killed him.”

“It did kill him,” McCoy says, eyes darting to Jim reflexively to remind himself Jim’s still there.

“I see.” Dr. Kosoko’s gaze reverts to professional neutrality, though McCoy can guess what she thinks about this bizarre report from an unshaven and traumatized man. “Well. There’s no question he’s alive, although I’m concerned about his neural function following his period of--” She diplomatically lets the word drop. “I’ve asked two of my colleagues in Neurology to consult. In the meantime we’re keeping him on level 2 life support pending further evaluation.”

“Of course.” McCoy reaches a hand toward the padd. “May I see the analytics?”

But Dr. Kosoko keeps the padd at her side. “I’m sorry, but you’re not assigned to Captain Kirk’s case. You are, however, listed as having his medical power of attorney, so I’ll certainly give you regular updates on his progress.”

“What in the--” McCoy tries not to sputter. “I’m the CMO of the Enterprise, with primary responsibility for the Captain’s--”

“The Enterprise has been moved to inactive status pending evaluation, and its personnel as well. It says here that you’re waiting to be debriefed by Command, and that in the meantime you’re not cleared to practice medicine at Starfleet Medical.” Kosoko’s voice, though firm, is not unsympathetic. “You’re welcome, of course, to see Captain Kirk during visiting hours.”

“Visiting hours?” McCoy rubs a hand across his prickly jaw, too bewildered to do more than raise his voice. “You’ve got a hospital full of injured people, and I can’t help them?”

Dr. Kosoko shrugs apologetically. “The city’s full of people who can use your help, I’m sure. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have other patients. Please let the nurse know when you’re done visiting with Captain Kirk.”

Visiting reminds McCoy of home, of his dad stopping in on the pretext of checking up on a patient and staying for lemonade and cookies and a good gossip. There’s no Jim to visit with because Jim is locked away in his own head, for how long, McCoy has no idea. McCoy’s anguish fluctuates in and out of self pity; the only thing he could do right now to make himself feel better, he’s forbidden from doing. He wishes he could complain about it, to Jim, but his friend isn’t here.

So McCoy does what he can: pulls the heat blanket up a little higher, check the leads on the neurometer (they seem loose, and McCoy isn’t sure the busy nurse will notice), and resists the urge touch the lax hand lying on the covers. At least some color has returned to his cheeks, and as his mother used to say, where there’s life, there’s hope.

I’m sorry.

“Okay, then, Jim,” he says, giving the blanket a final pat. “Sleep well. See ya soon.”

Day 3

The city, like the Enterprise, is a wreck of twisted metal, shell-shocked people being herded from corner to corner by endless lines of security and medical teams. The sky is choked with planetary rescue craft and extra-planetary ones as well: McCoy saw a Tellarian ship skyhook the top 8 stories of the Procyon Tower into the air and off to god knows where (the Ecomonitoring Authority already having put its foot down about dropping anything into the Bay).

The bodies--McCoy knows, from whispers around the Starfleet campus, that there are thousands--are removed with care and stealth to avoid further traumatizing the living. The injured are taken into hospitals according to the seriousness of their injuries, which means that for the first time in modern memory, there are people wounded and in pain with no choice but to wait.

So McCoy spends his spare hours roaming the city with his medkit, looking for people tagged with yellow or orange triage lights, with wounds and sprains and sometimes worse. Mostly they find him, thanks to the shirt and the badge, though his Starfleet status is still an open question.

He’s sealing a gash on a woman’s arm when the badge peeps. He’s been waiting for it all afternoon but he still nearly starts out of his skin, which startles the woman in turn and makes her look skyward: up, where bad things come from.

McCoy finishes the job and hurries back to the Neurology ward where Jim--capable even now of pulling the plummest assignments--has been given a room to himself.

“Dr. McCoy,” says Dr. Kosoko, taking in his bloodstained tunic and the dust in his hair, “I am glad you were able to join us. These are my colleagues, Dr. Santek and Dr. T’Kan.” There are grim faces but collegial handshakes all round; the protocols must be respected. T’Kan grips her wrists behind her back and inclines her head in a way McCoy doesn’t find the least bit deferential.

“Doctor,” T’Kan begins, “Captain Kirk is currently in an induced coma pending evaluation of the impact of novel cellular regeneration following his exposure to Delta radiation. While his organ and cellular function appear largely restored, the regeneration process has led, via an unknown mechanism, to swelling of brain tissue. As this may exacerbate brain injury stemming from the initial hypoxia, it is our recommendation that he be kept in the coma until the swelling resolves or a more accurate prognosis can be determined. For now we wish to know whether this meets with your approval. Captain Kirk’s medical directive was deemed insufficient for this unusual situation.”

They all stare at him as if he can even think right now, let alone come to any kind of cogent conclusion. “What’s the alternative? Let him wake up and treat any possible brain injury?”

T’Kan nods gravely. “Precisely. Given the unorthodox nature of the treatment he received, we would be in what one might call uncharted territory. I am afraid I can give no estimate of the amount of brain damage Captain Kirk may have suffered. The last brain scans we have are from more than two months ago, and our models would be of questionable value in any case.”

Maybe, McCoy thinks, he’s been spending too much time around Vulcans, but he’s feeling distinctly judged by Dr. T’Kan and these other august doctors who practice space medicine on the ground. He feels disapproval in the way T’Kan stands between him and Jim’s bed, how Kosoko keeps her padd tilted away from him. He wants to ask what they would do, with someone they love dead on one side and the blood that would save him on the other. But the possibility of brain damage puts the whole mess on new and terrible ground. Unintended consequences he thinks, looking at Jim’s artificially placid face. Off into the unknown again. But I’ve always had you with me before.

He’d give his left arm to be able to do something, to review the brain imaging or have access to a lab or maybe just run a tricorder over Jim, something Jim hates but McCoy finds grounding. But he’s not here as a doctor. He’s not next of kin, either; that would be Winona, wherever in the galaxy she might be. What Jim entrusted to McCoy, he did so because they were friends, colleagues, because of McCoy’s alleged professional ability and ethics, and because they never expected to be in this situation in the first place.

I’m sorry.

“Go ahead,” McCoy says, feeling his shoulders slump with a new burden. There’s no blaze of hope, no surge of adrenaline, just a silent wish that Jim will be back sometime soon to tell him he was wise, or an idiot. That, and waiting.

Day 4

Under Admiral Marcus’s reign, Starfleet had emphasized resource utilization, including a mandate that personnel who shipped out for more than 3 months had their personal possessions put in storage so their quarters could be reassigned. Since this didn’t apply to the rank of captain and above, Jim had invited McCoy to dump his stuff in Jim’s spare bedroom, where McCoy had occasionally also dumped his exhausted body after nights on the town.

What all this meant was that if McCoy wanted to have more than a change of underwear to his name, he had to go to Jim’s apartment.

Pre-Khan, most of the Starfleet brass lived in a gleaming tower just south of the campus, but Jim had managed to wangle himself an apartment in a mid-rise in Sutro Heights, loaded with 22nd century charm and boasting one-half of an ocean view. McCoy takes the cramped turbolift up to the 18th floor and swipes his finger over the lock. The door opens with a pop and a whoosh of air as the pressure seal releases, admitting him along with whatever tiny flecks of dust will settle on Jim’s unused furniture.

“Blinds, 30 percent.”

The blinds snap open at McCoy’s command, and the apartment is filled with early-evening sunlight. The sunset might be spectacular, but he’s had his heart broken too many times before when slate-grey clouds gathered just above the horizon. Instead, he makes a cursory check: a few hanging epiphytic plants, a closed-system fish tank, everything uncharacteristically orderly the way Jim left it before he shipped out, not the usual chaos of strewn clothes and week-old coffee cups. Jim isn’t much of a nester--even his mild affection for this apartment is unusual--but the few things he’s accumulated are on view in the living room: a holo of the Enterprise’s maiden flight, a Kalan mud basket from their first extrasolar mission, and in a transparent aluminum case well out of the danger zone of Jim’s parties, the wooden ship model Admiral Pike gave him as a graduation present. It’s a fragile thing full of tiny details McCoy’s sun-dazzled eyes can’t make out, but he knows the nameplate on its prow says Enterprise. There had been two of her name in that era, Jim told him; the one Pike had chosen was the one that had come safe home.

McCoy opens the little cabinet that Jim uses as a bar and pours himself a bourbon to toast Pike’s memory. It’s bitterly unfair: twice Pike had undertaken a mission, full of vigor and promise, and twice it had all come apart on him. The first time at least he’d seen Jim, his son in all but name, make some order out of the chaos, but the second time even Jim hadn’t been able to save him. All that’s left is putting things back together.

At least the apartment faces away from the ruins of the city; the only trace McCoy can see is the ever-present dust and smoke dancing in the golden slices of sunlight. Beyond that, the Pacific ebbs and flows in tranquil blue and silver.

McCoy raises his glass to the little ship, downs the contents, and heads to the spare bedroom, intending to stuff a few changes of civvies into his bag and go. The thought of going back to his room in the Transient Personnel dorm makes his stomach burn more than the liquor. It’s closer to the hospital, but Sutro Heights is still only minutes away by hover cab. If Jim were conscious there’d be no question of his staying here. Maybe Jim would help him move the boxes off the spare bed, or maybe he’d bunk with Jim the way he did a few late nights in the in-between time after graduation and before they shipped out. He closes his eyes, just for a second, and he can feel Jim’s weight in the bed, see the sprawl of naked limbs, Jim boundaryless even in sleep, while McCoy curls up on his side, trying to respect the 50/50 rule.

Even epiphytic plants do better with a little water, McCoy thinks. He drops his bag, forages for pajamas, and tries to remember whether the good Indian place on 48th Street delivers.

Part 2 >>

River Junction (Kirk/McCoy, NC-17), 2/2

2012-12-29T23:24:37Z

It’s half past eight by the time they get Sam discharged and hit the road, Winona driving Sam and leaving Leonard and Jim alone for what must be an unpleasantly symbolic drive south to Riverside. The road is featureless, Jim silent and aggrieved, until the interior pressure gets to be so great that Leonard feels like he’s back on the little jet again, struggling to catch his breath against an imagined shortage of oxygen.

“Tell me,” Leonard pleads at last, as the night wraps around them and cold stars appear above the shiny hood of the SUV. “At least give me a hint. Was it the usual family crap, or something worse?”

“How bad would it have to be to justify the way I’m acting?” Jim keeps his eyes on the road, though it’s pin-straight. “Everybody likes Sam, and you’re going to love my mom regardless, because she’s a mom and you feel guilty about Jocelyn.”

“Hey. This isn’t about me, but since you brought me into this, I think I have a right to know. If you want me to be pissed off at somebody on your behalf, you have to give me a reason.”

Jim maintains a tight-jawed silence and exits off the divided highway where the sign says Riverside, but then makes a left onto a dark rural road under the overpass.

“I thought the house was in Riverside?”

Jim sighs, putting his shoulders into it. “Technically, it’s River Junction. My grandparents owned the place, but by the ‘80s hardly anyone lived there except this old lady who’d shoot trespassers on sight. I went to high school in Riverside, and it makes a better story--that I was raised on sunshine and Pop-Tarts and played Sky Masterson in the senior production of Guys and Dolls. No one cares; it gets me through the first two minutes on talk shows, and then they just want to know what hot actress I’m fucking.”

“I care.” Leonard tries to keep his tone light and fails miserably.

“Why? The official story is close enough to the truth. That I left here as soon as I got a driver’s license because it was boring as fuck and never looked back. That I got rich and famous and sent my mom money so she wouldn’t have to keep working as a bank teller when she should be retired or writing novels, and that my brother probably would have gone off on his own to be some caribou-chasing asshole even if my father hadn’t--”

“If he hadn’t--what?”

“If he hadn’t died.”

“Oh.” Leonard swallows. “Uh. When was that, Jim? How old were you”

“Less than a day”

“Oh, Lord.”

“There you go--paydirt. My defining childhood trauma, even though it happened before I remember. They sent me to this therapist in high school and she nearly cried with joy when I told her; that’s why I’ll never go to one of those idiots. So are you happy now? Everything wrapped up in a neat, little Freudian package.” Jim shoots Leonard a hard look, his eyes narrowed to slits.

“Of course I’m not happy. I just--” Leonard’s on the verge of confession, of admitting that since he walked into the hospital room he wanted nothing more than to broker peace between Jim and his family, even though he knows nothing about the situation and is probably the worst person on earth to do it. “How did happen? Your dad, I mean. If you don’t mind telling me.”

“Funny story,” Jim says without smiling. “After years of working as an A.D. on shitty TV shows, he finally got his big directing break, a medium-budget cop movie with a lot of car chases. And on the third day of shooting, one of those cars flipped over and landed on him. When she got the news, Mom went into labor.”

“Good God.”

“Don’t. Please. It’s a thing that happened. It wouldn’t have been any different if my dad had left for any other reason. For me, anyway. You know what’s weird, though? No one’s ever put two and two together, even though my dad’s name is on those lists of people who died in Hollywood accidents. That’s what’s great about Riverside; you say that name, you say ‘Iowa’, and everybody can fill in the details. Everybody knows exactly what my childhood was like.”

“I don’t,” Leonard says. “I wouldn’t presume.”

“Yeah, well, It was fine. Pretty good, actually. I wasn’t feral or anything; we had TV and Super Nintendo, even though we lived out here in the ass end of nowhere. One year we drove to Yellowstone in a neighbor’s RV, and whole months went by where I didn’t set anything on fire. It could have been worse.” There’s a pause, and then Jim gives a painful little bark of laughter that makes Leonard want to put a hand on Jim’s shoulder, but he’s wound Jack-in-the-Box tight, eyes shiny but unblinking on the unbending road.

It’s pitch black and the houses have thinned out to no more than a few per mile, lonely islands outlined with colored lights and inflatable Santas floodlit and forlorn in acre-wide front yards. The eerie darkness does odd things to Leonard’s imagination, makes him wish he could reach out and pluck it out of Jim, the thing that makes him hate this place, or if not to remove it, then to at least put it into his own mind so that Jim wouldn’t have to tell him, he’d just know.

A sign says they’re crossing the Iowa River but Leonard can see nothing, not even inky water down below. Then Jim turns off the blacktop onto a gravel road, noise drowning out any hypothetical conversation. A mile or so later they turn into a driveway lined with trees, Jim apparently navigating from memory, and crunch to a stop.

“Last chance,” Jim says, throwing the gear into park. “You want to drive back to Iowa City, the truck’s all yours.”

The thought that Jim might be serious arrests Leonard’s grip on the door handle, but then Jim gives a mock evil laugh and leaps out, grabbing both their duffel bags from the back. It’s at least 10 degrees colder than it was in Iowa City; Leonard can see his breath in the moonlight that also illuminates a bank of dark clouds moving in from the north.

The Kirk house is not, as Leonard imagined, a looming Children of the Corn Victorian, but a sprawling mid-century split-level with a two-car garage, a cluster of outbuildings, and a little tree picked out in white lights in the front yard.

“Looks like we beat them home,” Leonard says, but Jim lifts the doormat and finds a key. Inside, Jim drops their bags with a thud and gropes around for the lights.

The interior is comfortable middle American, thick oatmeal carpet and overstuffed sofas, a ceiling fan and a fireplace, amateur oil paintings of riverbanks and sunflowers, and in the corner, a live Christmas tree.

Jim’s eyes are scanning, mapping the room to his interior memory. “She got rid of the old furniture. Thank fuck for that.”

Leonard, doubly uneasy at being an essentially uninvited guest in Jim’s childhood home, shoves his hands in his pockets and wanders over to a table full of framed family photos. It’s easy to pick out Jim in various stages of blazing youth: a kid with a bowlcut holding a tiny baseball bat, a skinny teen with wheat-blond hair and mile-long limbs. Sam is equally unmistakable, burly and cheerfully thuggish even as a kid. On the end is a gilt-framed wedding photo, Winona and Jim’s dad--a handsome man with Sam’s eyes but Jim’s build--wearing white, barefoot on a beach that Leonard finds strangely familiar.

“Is that Malibu? Did your family live there?”

Jim snorts. “You kidding me? It was insanely expensive, even back then. Mom and Dad had a little Spanish style rancher in Culver City. They were planning to move after I came along and Dad got his big break, because, y’know, that’s how those things happen.”

There’s another photo of Winona with a different man, older and huskier, sitting side-by-side in a booth at a restaurant with old farm equipment on the walls. Leonard lifts it gingerly to get a better look.

“Who’s that? An uncle?”

“Nope,” Jim says with a sudden burst of false brightness, slides it from Leonard’s hands,

places it on the carpet and crushes the glass under the heavy heel of his boot.

“Jim, what the hell?”

At that moment, there’s a sound of scuffling from the kitchen, of a key turning in the lock.

“Jim!” Winona yells. “Can you give me a hand?”

Rather than being left with the smashed photo like a guilty dog, Leonard follows Jim through the kitchen door and into the garage, where Winona is unloading Sam and groceries.

“We stopped at Casey’s,” she says, handing Leonard a bag. “I had to get some broth and rice and soft bread. I hope you boys like fruitcake; nobody on the planet seems to except Sam. I make it just for him and now he can’t eat it.”

“And it’s a damn shame,” Sam says, levering himself out of the car. “You know how great mom’s cakes are.” Leonard scoops the remaining bags out of the trunk while shooing Jim in the direction of his brother, because Sam could easily have vertigo and the situation is far from stress-free. Jim supports his brother with a reluctant hand under the elbow while Sam looks deeply amused by the whole situation.

“Right there, if you don’t mind,” Winona says, pointing to the kitchen table as Leonard brings the bags in. “Jim, Sam’s staying in his old room, can you help him up there?” And then, to Leonard, “Give me a minute to unpack and I’ll fix you something to eat; you must be starving. I don’t know what possessed me, but I cooked a whole turkey the day before yesterday, even though it’s just me and Sam, but you know how it is when you’ve got company.” She starts banging around cabinets, pouring chicken stock into a pot. “I got the idea to make Sam some congee, but that’s going to take hours; is it alright for him to have yogurt? He says that’s what he wants, but it isn’t on the sheet the doctor gave us.”

“It should be fine; beneficial, even, to restore the intestinal flora,” Leonard says, trying to stay out of Winona’s way, since she’s produced a turkey bigger than her head from the fridge and is going at it with a huge carving knife.

“Oh, good. It really is wonderful having you here; I was worried about how I was going to get Sam home, and now I don’t have to worry about him having a relapse during the night. You’re not from California, are you, Len?”

“No, ma’am, I’m from Georgia.”

“Georgia.” Winona stops her whirlwind motion long enough to give a little sigh. “That’s lovely. And how long have you and Jim been seeing each other?”

Leonard feels the shock cold-water shock of discovery, but it’s followed by an unsettling mental replay of the events preceding, the what did I do, what did I say? of hindsight. Leonard’s felt it in bars when men catch his eye from across the room, in airports when they sit next to him and not in any of a dozen other empty seats, and now, in Jim’s mother’s kitchen, somewhere east of the Iowa River.

“I’m sorry,” she says kindly. “Was I not supposed to know? It’s just that he’s never brought anyone home, not even when he was in high school, and this isn’t the kind of situation you bring a friend into, even a very good one. It’s all right, really,” she adds, when Leonard supposes his face hasn’t quite recomposed itself. “I was around Hollywood in the ‘70s; there’s not much you can do to shock me. I just wish Sam could find someone, but the pickings are pretty slim up there in moose country. It is beautiful, though; maybe you and Jim can visit some time. Do you like sauerkraut with turkey? I don’t know if they do that in the South but it tastes better than you’d think.”

With that, Leonard is lost; Jim’s right that he can’t help being charmed by Winona Kirk, but in his own defense he hasn’t sat in any mother’s kitchen since his mother-in-law’s, which might as well be North Korea for the likelihood he’ll ever go back.

“Well, now, I’ve never heard of that, but I’m willing to give it a try.”

He’s in that compromising position when Jim finds him in the kitchen, fork deep in a plateful of turkey while Winona slices bananas into yogurt.

“He says he wants orange juice,” Jim says, saving most of his glare for his mother. “Is there any orange juice?”

“Too acidic,” Leonard says, swallowing fast. “Your mom got some of those sports drinks. Just make sure there’s no caffeine in them.”

“I’ll bring him one along with his food,” Winona says.

“No, I’ll do it.”

“Then I’ll bring his medicine. And I fixed a plate of turkey for you, Jim, it’s in the microwave.”

There’s a minute of huffy impasse and then Jim grabs a Gatorade out of the fridge and follows his mother out. It’s only then that Leonard remembers the smashed picture in the living room. Leonard’s ears strain unwillingly.

“I didn’t know you were coming,” Winona says quietly.

“Doesn’t matter. That shouldn’t be in the house.” Jim’s voice is distant, wintry.

“You don’t understand. It helps me to remember that there were good times, too.”

“You love to rewrite history, don’t you? Put it in a silver picture frame and you can pretend the bad stuff never happened.”

“You want to talk about this? Then let’s talk. Later. You came here to see your brother, so go see him.”

There’s a pause, and then Leonard hears heavy stomping up wooden stairs. Winona enter the kitchen in search of a dustpan and broom, lines more visible in her face than they were before.

“Let me give you a hand with that,” Leonard says. “I’ll get the big pieces, but you’ll probably want a vacuum cleaner for the rest.”

Leonard sweeps up the shards and Winona slides the photo, only slightly damaged, from the wreckage.

“How much did he tell you?”

“Nothing at all,” Leonard says truthfully. “I don’t know who that is, in the picture.”

Winona gives a quick, forced smile. “Could you wrap the glass in newspaper and put it in the garbage? Then please finish your food; I don’t want it to get cold.”

Ten minutes later she’s offering Leonard fruitcake and coffee (“Shall I put a little brandy in that for you, Len?”), sedating him with food the way his own mother used to, tryptophan and carbohydrates damping his myriad questions. But then she pours herself some black coffee and sits down with him at the kitchen table, wrapping her hands around the steaming mug and leaning on her elbows, an almost primal gesture that in Leonard’s familial experience that means we need to talk.

The photo is tucked, half-visible, behind a milk glass bud vase on the table. “That man?” she says, pointing to it. “It’s Frank, my second husband.”

“Ah.” Leonard feels a door of memory opening, and something like a cold draft.

“Jim told you about George? How he died?” Leonard nods. “Mm. I got a modest settlement from the studio, and a good bit less from his life insurance. It wasn’t enough to stay in L.A.. I was a TV writer, and work was unpredictable at the best of times, even without two small children to take care of. So I did the ‘sensible’ thing and moved back here, with my parents. I got my real estate license and started working for a brokerage in Iowa City. That’s where I met Frank; he was an Iowa State football player who spent a season in the pros, had some money, and decided he wanted to be a gentleman farmer. River Junction was going through a bad period--a lot of people were selling off, their kids moving away--and he got the Dean place just down the road for a song. And I started dating him. I didn’t feel guilty; it was eight years since George died. Frank was a nice, cheerful guy, and he was strong, and it isn’t very feminist to say so, but it was so good to have a man around to lift and fix things and drive back from Iowa City late at night after we’d seen a movie. And to throw a football around with the boys.” The way Winona sips her coffee makes Leonard see the ghost of a cigarette, a worldly young woman living in L.A. in the era of huge cars and Kodachrome-blue skies, and then someone older and lonelier, settling for what made sense.

“I understand. It’s not easy being a single parent.” That much Leonard knows to be true, whatever Winona is about to tell him. “So, you got married?”

“Mm-hmm. My parents were getting to the point that they didn’t want to farm any more. We decided to rent this place from them so they could move to Arizona. Frank moved into this house, hired a couple of guys to work the farm, and then opened a little barbecue place in town. That’s the restaurant, in the photo. He called it ‘Buddy’s,’ and it did pretty good business for first few years, until the chain restaurants started moving in.”

“And Sam and Jim? I guess it’s obvious they didn’t get along. Jim, anyway.”

“Not exactly.” Winona tucks a loose strand of white-blonde hair behind her ear. “I mean, the boys weren’t crazy about him at first but I didn’t expect them to be--it’s hard for stepparents, and Jim idolized his father, even though he never knew him. Frank was a bit of an alpha male, very much about laying down rules. But I thought it would be good for the boys in the long-run; they were running wild around here and Sam was almost a teenager.”

“Seems like a reasonable assumption,” Leonard says, feeling rising jitters composed of caffeine and sugar and foreboding.

“Yes, well.” Winona’s face, bright with the engagement of telling a story, seems to sink. “One day, out of the blue, I got a call from my old writing partner. She’d sold a pilot about a divorced woman with kids who moves to a small town, and she was single with no kids and needed help. I’d pretty much given up on having a career--I was working on the farms and helping Frank with his restaurant business--and I didn’t realize until that call how much I missed it. Frank and I came up with a plan where I’d spend a few months at a time in L.A., he’d build up his business, and then when we had enough money, we’d move out there and he’d franchise his restaurants.” She looks at him from under her lashes with a paler version of the Kirk eyes. “And now you think I’m a terrible mother, because I’d move away from my children.”

“No, not at all.” Leonard shifts uncomfortably in his chair.

“The show ran for four seasons--Hope Rising, maybe you’ve heard of it? No, you’re not in the demographic. Anyway, I travelled back and forth to L.A., and I got involved in the business again. I knew things were strained here--Frank and the boys fought all the time--but I thought, just one more year. We’ll move and once we’re there in the sunshine, once the boys can go to the beach every day, everything will be fine. Then Sam ran away, a month before he was supposed to graduate from high school. I came home to deal with it and opened a letter I wasn’t meant to open. It was a loan application, using the farm as security. Frank’s business was on the rocks and he’d been planning to forge my signature. We were practically bankrupt and he’d started drinking to deal with the stress, which made his temper worse. It had gotten physical between him and Sam; they didn’t do any real damage to each other, but Jim saw everything.”

“Oh, Lord.” Leonard can’t help wincing, heart contracting in anger and empathy at the thought of how helpless Jim--a lanky teenager, probably more inclined to use his brain than his fists--must have felt.

“I know. He wouldn’t talk to me about it, but I saw what it did to him. His grades dropped, he was getting in trouble, and Frank hid it from me because he didn’t want me coming home. My sweet, sunny boy was cutting school to hang out with druggies in the city, and he’d barely talk to me. He blamed me for everything--Frank, Sam leaving, all the financial problems we had after the divorce. We had to move into an apartment for a while and rent the farm out while I tried to get back on my feet. And then Jim ran off, too, all the way to Los Angeles--the last place I’d thought he’d ever go. But I suppose it made sense, after all. Maybe it was his way of feeling close to George.”

Winona lays her hands flat on the kitchen table like a card player who’s played her last hand. “So there it is, Len. All my sins, and they are legion. And Jim turned out to be a spectacular success--in spite of it? Because of it? I’ll never know. But he hasn’t forgiven me--” Winona glances at the trash can. “As you can see.”

Leonard, aching with the urge to give absolution that isn’t his to give, says nothing, and then Jim comes stomping into the kitchen.

“Sam says he’ll take that chicken soup now.” With a passing glance at Leonard and his Judas slice of cake, Jim punches some numbers into the microwave and Winona takes the hint, putting a bowl of clear broth on a tray and gliding from the room.

“You two looked pretty cozy,” Jim says. Leonard shrugs and doesn’t point out that the kitchen smells of coffee and ginger and the Christmas tree, now plugged in, glows in the still-dark living room.

Jim shovels turkey and dressing into his mouth with his elbows out and Leonard has to blink to clear the image of a teenaged Jim sitting at this very table doing the same thing. “Maybe we shouldn’t mention this thing--” he does the you and me gesture with his fork--”you know, us, or whatever, to Sam. He’s cool but I’m not sure about those human grizzly bears he works with. Also, he’d give me shit for it and I’m not in the mood.”

Leonard accepts the logic of it more willingly than the manner. “It’s all right; we can flip a coin for the couch. Your mom already figured it out, by the way.”

Jim nods, chewing. “You’re every mother’s dream. God, I don’t know what happened to her--she never used to be into cooking and decorating and shit. You know she did those paintings in the living room? Do you know how long that must take, and they’re not even good.”

“She’s not a young woman, Jim; maybe she’s just tired. Anyway, why didn’t she move back to L.A. after--” Leonard pauses.

“After what?”

“After the divorce.”

Jim drops his fork onto his plate with a clank. “Oh, good, you must have gotten the whole apologia about how she was just a poor, single mom with a farm and no help raising her wild boys except, oh wait, her parents and the three guys they hired and it’s not like we were out here on the plains surrounded by wolves. Maybe I was being unrealistic because you’re, like, putty in the hands of any sweet-talking woman who can make you feel guilty, but I was hoping for a little more support. Like maybe possibly considering there’s another side to the story.”

“And I’d be happy to hear it, anytime you want to tell me.”

“That’s the thing; I really don’t. I’ve devoted a shit ton of effort to making sure I’m not the Boy with the Sad Story, or some bitter adult who gets drunk and punches walls. I made a life for myself, an amazing life, and yet here I am in Iowa drinking Gatorade from my mom’s jelly glass.” Jim wipes his hands with his napkin, as if cleaning off Iowa, and throws it on his plate.

“Because she is your mom, and you’re a decent person, even if you’re acting like a petulant three-year-old right now.” Jim pegs him with a blue glare, but Leonard holds firm. “I’m not trying to minimize a single thing that happened to you, but since you bothered to come here, you might as well deal with it. Say what you need to say to your mom, or suck it up and give your mom a decent Christmas.”

“Okay,” Jim says, fists clenching and unclenching, as if he’s still not sure. “Okay, okay. Fine, you’re right, I just--I hate this. And there’s no fucking way I can stay through Christmas. If it was just one of them it might be okay, but Sam and Mom together--”

“So what are you going to do? On Christmas, I mean?” Leonard says, a little embarrassed that he hasn’t been brave enough to ask before.

“I don’t know--the usual. Surf on Christmas Day; that’s always cool. Go out. Maybe see what Rob and Stella are up to. They’ve scheduled a kid for early next year, so I’ve got to hang out with them while I still can.”

“You’re spending Christmas with your agent and your lawyer?”

“Oh, please. Rob’s Jewish and I’m pretty sure Stella is an atheist, okay? Christmas is a religious holiday, not some fucking national mandate to discover the true meaning of family.”

“It’s not about Christmas per se, it’s about having somewhere to go--somewhere that’s home.”

“That’s coming from the guy whose ‘family’ makes him about as welcome as the flu.”

In deference to Jim’s stress level, Leonard abstains from his own napkin-throwing. “All right, then. You brought me here to make sure Sam’s okay, so I better do that.”

“Sure, if it would make you feel useful. He’s in his old bedroom.” Jim points vaguely toward the living room. “Upstairs.”

The second floor of the Kirk residence is full of those parallel-universe features that must be in every middle-class house in America: worn wall-to-wall carpeting, varnished wood railings, a globe on top of a bookcase full of old magazines. Leonard finds Sam in bed, half-raised on a stack of pillows, and Winona in the chair next to him, feet propped up on the edge of the bed. He waves his little medical kit and Winona jumps to her feet, giving Leonard a confidential little smile and a squeeze of the arm on the way out.

Sam seems larger in this room than he did in the hospital; his broad chest fills out his thin T-shirt, lungs taking deep breaths as if they’re used to purer air.

“I don’t know how you feel, but you look better,” Leonard says, getting out his blood pressure cuff.

“Getting out of the hospital, plus Mom’s home cooking. Did you try the fruitcake?”

“Uh, yeah. It tasted fine.”

“She gets it from the store; we’re not supposed to know.”

“I won’t breathe a word.” Leonard’s grateful to have a topic for safe banter, because there’s a degree of consanguinity that makes him uncomfortable, even though he’s just checking the guy’s vitals.

“Did he put up a struggle?”

“Excuse me?”

“Jim. He wouldn’t have visited without a struggle, ‘cause the last time was a big, flaming disaster. Did he tell you about it? He came here with a writer and a photographer to do some stupid-ass magazine article, and they made him put on his old tux and dance with the girl who was his prom date, and then he came home and got into a big fight with Mom and put his fist through the wall in the kitchen. Tried, anyway; this old house is pretty well made. So unless he had a change of heart--which I don’t think he did because he’s still acting like a moody asshole--I guess you talked him into coming here.”

Sam finishes, unfortunately, just as Leonard’s about to take his temperature, which leaves him with a good 45 seconds of silence, and Sam’s eyes bright and curious above the thermometer.

“Well, now, I don’t know that I talked him into it, exactly,” Leonard begins, realizing that he’s already tacitly admitted to knowing Jim well enough that it’s a possibility. “It was mostly his idea. But I did tell him I see a lot of this in my line of work, and God knows I saw enough of it in my family, all this damned Anglo-Saxon grudge-holding and silence.” Sam nods, mutely, familiar heavy eyebrows raised in what seems to be agreement, and Leonard is emboldened to continue.

“See, the thing is, I can’t tell him what to do because I don’t know how bad it was, and even I did that would be my judgement, not his, and I don’t have a right to tell him what to feel about it. But I feel like he thinks money and success solved the problem, and I don’t want to see him end up like some god-damned Charles Foster Kane, muttering River Junction on his deathbed.” Feeling himself flush red, as if from the fever that Sam probably doesn’t have, he pulls the thermometer from Sam’s mouth. “Ninety-nine point five. And I’m sorry, I don’t know where that came from.”

“No worries; it’s hard to get a word in edgewise around Mom. Or Jim for that matter.” He shifts, rearranging his huge limbs in the small bed and pulling up the covers. “I can tell you that it was bad, bad enough that I stayed away for years. But the guys I work around, they made me realize that it wasn’t any worse than the normal shit people go through, and not as bad as some. I want to have kids someday, and I want my kids to know their grandmother. I don’t know what Jim wants,” Sam says, and for a terrible moment Leonard’s afraid he’s going to wink, but then he just gives Leonard a friendly pat on the arm. “But whatever it is, I hope he finds it. He’s my little brother, after all.”

In lieu of gratitude he can’t express, Leonard feeds Sam some more Gatorade and Tylenol. Jim’s waiting for him at the foot of the stairs, holding his duffel bag.

“After an incredible amount of pointless discussion, it’s been determined that you’re going to sleep in my old room and I’m going to take the fold-out sofa in the den so our gayness doesn’t give my brother a relapse. Now I’m supposed to help you find towels and shit.”

Jim’s old room is not, as Leonard feared, a shrine or time capsule, but has been scrubbed to generic guest-room style with a queen-sized bed-in-a-bag and a framed print of a mill. The sloping roof seems to make Jim’s shoulders hunch in response, and he shoves his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, a youthful gesture that punches at Leonard’s heart.

“Hey,” Jim says. “Welcome to the inside of my head. I dream about this place all the time, so it’s not weird at all that you’re sleeping here. So, uh, good night. Thanks for taking care of Sam. Don’t worry about setting an alarm; I’ll wake you up and I’ll take you to the airport in the morning.”

“Jim, wait.” Leonard has no idea what he’s doing, but the thought of Jim alone with his thoughts in self-exile on a foldout sofa is more than he can bear. “Sit down a minute.”

Leonard pats the bed next to him, and Jim sits down, the springs only shifting a little as Jim doesn’t quite commit his weight. “I’m sorry if you feel like I haven’t been supporting you. What you went through sounds terrible, the parts I know about, anyway. And I don’t blame you for staying angry, how can I? But I have to tell you this--if you’re angry at your mother for the choices she made, then you have to be angry at me, too, because I did the same damn thing.”

“No. No, you didn’t,” Jim says, with touching indignation. “You’re completely involved in Jo’s life. You wouldn’t leave her alone for a second with that guy--Clay?--if you thought he’d hurt her.”

“Of course I wouldn’t, but do I know for sure? She’s quiet as a church mouse, and God love her, she tries to protect me. So maybe I’m missing something important because I’m 3000 miles away most of the time. Maybe someday she’ll be in my house telling me how upset that made her. You want to go earlier than that? Back to when I gave her mother every good reason to divorce me? Or even before--when I helped bring her into this world because Joce wanted it so much, and I felt like I owed her that, at least. Do you hear me? I had a kid because I felt guilty about marrying her mother in the first place.”

“You didn’t--” Jim begins, and then stops, looking everywhere but at Leonard. “You can’t-”

“Right. I can’t wish any of it away because then I’d be wishing Jo away, and the point is--you make the best decision you can and then you live with the consequences. If your mom hadn’t remarried you might have stayed here and become an aircraft mechanic and that might have been fine. Or if your dad hadn’t died, you might have stayed in Hollywood and turned into some snotty kid who hangs out at The Grove all day. Or maybe you would have done the same thing that you did anyway, because it was in you all along, written there in your DNA at the second you were conceived.”

Leonard’s thoughts skitter to a halt and he’s breathless, boggled at his own recklessness but determined, this time, not to build a relationship on an untruth. Jim shifts, and runs his hand over the back of his neck, and at least doesn’t deck Leonard or run away.

“Wow,” he says after a little while, corners of his mouth edging up. “You’re not usually much of a talker, but once you get going--wow. Why do you care so much, how I feel about my mom?”

“Because I want you to be happy.”

The little smile breaks into a grin. “I know you do. Otherwise there’s no way you’d be in Iowa dealing with my fucking family.”

“They’re nice people, Jim. I like them.”

“You like everybody,” Jim says, throwing an arm around Leonard’s shoulders. “You put on this big misanthropic carnival show because you’re afraid of getting hurt, but you’ll give it up for anybody who’s nice to you. I don’t mean sex,” he says, when Leonard opens his mouth to object. “I mean the other thing.”

Leonard doesn’t argue, because he can’t.

“I want to make you happy, too,” Jim says. “What would that take? I’ll tell you right now, I don’t think I can give up women.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to,” Leonard says, stunned.

“Then what else?”

The weight of Jim’s arm is like the weight of the world, a million little voices telling him don’t fuck this up. “Okay, then. I want--I want to be the person you spend holidays with. Not the only person, but I want to be there. I want you to tell me things if they’re bothering you, like this thing with your mom. And I don’t want you to feel like you have to be perfect for me, even though I know that takes some courage.”

“My assholish behavior in the last 24 hours should be a good start.”

“Yeah. I mean, I want you to feel you can be that way around me. Real. Not ‘Jim Kirk’, but this guy from Iowa.”

“This guy from Iowa would never have met you, let alone invited himself to your house to jump your bones. But I get what you’re saying, and I think I can do that. As long as you can admit that the beach house and the sports car don’t hurt.”

Leonard parts his lips to answer and Jim, not expecting one, kisses him instead. They’re all the luxury Leonard has ever wanted, soft and warm, bringing their own sunshine when the prairie wind is blowing against the windowpanes. Jim drops his arm to Leonard’s waist and puts a hand on his knee, and there’s something so chaste and boyish about it that Leonard gets tears in his eyes, because Jim’s right, he’s helpless against this, but it turns out there’s no need to worry.

Jim’s kisses his way up Leonard’s jaw, tender lips scratching against his beard stubble, and says in his ear, “No fucking way I’m sleeping on the foldout sofa tonight.”

“But what about--” Leonard begins, eyes on the half-open door.

“Their problem.” He leans Leonard back onto the bed--he’s a metaphorical and actual pushover--and begins to unbutton his shirt, leer getting more pronounced with each button.

“God damn,” he says, opening Leonard’s shirt. “If I was still 14 I’d have shot by now. But when I was 14, I had no idea there were guys like you in the world.” He cups Leonard’s jeans, affably, and Leonard would appreciate the assist, except--

“You’re not planning to do anything, are you?” He squirms under Jim’s gently probing hands. “I mean, it’s weird, in your old bedroom--”

“Oh, no,” Jim mocks, eyebrows raised and lips forming an O. “What if Mom finds out I’ve got a boy in my room? She’ll ground me for sure.”

He unbuckles Leonard’s jeans and shucks them, deigning to kick the door closed before he goes for Leonard’s underwear. Leonard lies flat on his back, feet still planted on the floor, caught in the fantasy of an adolescent daydream coming true. He has no idea if it’s Jim’s dream or his own and doesn’t especially care, especially when Jim kneels on the little shag rug by the bed and begins to stroke his thighs. It’s taken Leonard a long time to enjoy the feeling of exposure, to feel trust for Jim instead of the uncomfortable sexual thrill of near-humiliation, and he should really be more nervous with Jim’s mom and and his gigantic and possibly homophobic brother within shouting distance, but he doesn’t. He’s in a bubble universe of Jim’s creation, a righting of the world, one that happens to involve Jim’s mouth coming home to wrap around his cock.

Jim’s mouth is hot and always so wet, and it makes Leonard feel a tenderness he can’t express, to think that Jim loves the taste of him. Pleasure rises like floodwaters, and he stares at the faint outlines of tape squares on the ceiling, half-illuminated by a circle of light from the bedside lamp. He wonders what Jim taped over his bed to dream about at night--chiseled boys or bikini-clad girls, fast cars or faraway beaches.

It doesn’t matter. Jim’s hands are gently pressing his thighs further apart, brushing fingers against the sensitive undersides of his cheeks, cupping him while he takes him in deeper. Jim is doing this because he likes to make Leonard happy, and if he takes pride in it, loves making Leonard curl his fingers in the flowered bedspread so that he doesn’t accidentally pull Jim’s hair, it’s with good reason. It’s a gift that Jim is giving him, and for once in his life Leonard is content simply to receive.

A few things happen, along with Leonard’s heart filling enough to burst. He comes with the squeaky beginning of a cry and claps his hand over his mouth, which makes Jim laugh, even though he’s still got Leonard’s cock between his lips and is trying to deal with things. Jim stretches a leg out and pretends to crack the door open, and Leonard mouths no, no, no, in part because he’s pins-and-needles sensitive at this stage and Jim’s tongue is still working him like delicate sandpaper. When he finishes and stands up, Leonard’s eyes seek out the familiar and notable bulge in his jeans.

“Want me to help you with that?” he whispers.

“What I want is to nail you to that bed, but I didn’t bring any condoms, do you believe it?” Jim says, a few decibels louder than Leonard would like. “Maybe I should check the dresser; there may still be one wedged between the drawers.”

Instead they go about their little pre-bed rituals, washing up in the hall bathroom, stacking their electronic devices on the bedside table, and finally, getting in bed and turning out the light.

Jim lets Leonard curl around him, something his restive semi-sleep usually doesn’t allow. The night is silent; when the heat turns off, there’s nothing audible but the creaking of wind in trees, and the cold seems to press in on the windows. Jim, with the sunshine of Africa and California a memory, shivers and shifts back in Leonard’s arms, cold feet against his shins, and Leonard holds him tighter. Perhaps for that, or perhaps for something else, Jim mutters, “Thank you.”

+++++

Leonard wakes to an empty bed and a full cup of coffee on the nightstand, and a few minutes later Jim walks in, full flannel farm boy with the tails of a plaid shirt hanging over his jeans.

“C’mon,” he says, swatting Leonard’s blanketed foot. “Mom’s going to make us a big breakfast and she wants us to get the eggs.”

“How’s Sam this morning?”

“Good. Hungry. I can tell you right now the broth thing is going to last about two more hours.”

Leonard pulls on his clothes and jacket and staggers after Jim into an iron-grey morning; the temperature’s dropped at least 10 degrees overnight, and the clouds are pregnant with snow.

“There’s a bad storm headed our way,” Jim says, hands in his jacket pockets and his head craned toward the north.

“Can you tell that by the clouds?”

“Nope, Weather Channel. Six to twelve inches by late tonight. My kind of forecast,” he says, nudging Leonard with his hip.

“Oh, Lord. Are the flight conditions okay? Should we be leaving now?”

“It’s fine; the wind’s not going to pick up until the afternoon, and we’ll be long gone by then.”

When his eyes stop tearing from the cold, Leonard gets a good look at the Kirk farm--not one of those precious semi-urban toylands favored by Atlanta gentry, but a working farm with bleached white outbuildings, silos, and brown stubs of corn rotting in the field. Jim opens the door to a little barn, hands Leonard a basket, and shoves him into a dim hell of chickens.

“Get a dozen,” he says. “The good ones are the ones with less chicken shit on them.”

Leonard picks his way around complaining chickens for Jim’s amusement. The eggs are pale shades of brown and admittedly lovely except for the proximity of the creatures who laid them. A black cat brushes by his legs and moves along on its rounds.

“Fun, huh?” Jim says. “Now imagine doing this twice a day for the rest of your life.”

Winona’s breakfast does honor to the cholesterol-hiking reputation of the region, with piles of sausage and fresh scrambled eggs and gallons of coffee. Sam, his wattage turned up considerably after a good night’s sleep, feels well enough to sit at the dining room table and is reasonably gracious about his breakfast of yogurt and dry toast. Jim isn’t exactly cordial but he’s civil, ferrying things to and from the kitchen and doing the minimum to keep the conversational ball in play.

“You really can’t stay, Len?” Winona asks. “We’d love to have you both for Christmas. Sam brought venison from Alaska for Christmas dinner.”

“I’d love to, but I have to get back to Atlanta. My daughter’s expecting me.” Leonard catches a lightning glance of significance pass from Sam to Winona. “But I truly appreciate the--venison?” He looks at Sam. “Did you shoot it yourself?”

“Sure did. Me and the boys went to the island two weekends ago. Bagged my limit before mid-December; that’s a first.”

“And did you eat some of the meat then?”

“Hell yes. You should taste it when it’s fresh.” He frowns at his dry toast. “Cooked over the fire, nothing better.”

“Well, that’s probably where the E. coli came from. I saw more than a few cases in the E.R. in Georgia.”

“Oh, no,” Winona says, looking with concern toward the kitchen. “Sam brought it packed in ice, and now it’s in the freezer. What should I do?”

“Just cook it through; it’ll be fine.”

Winona grimaces. “Oh, I couldn’t. Maybe I’ll just pick up a spiral ham from Casey’s.”

By mid-morning Leonard is itchy to leave, thanks to the darkening sky and a couple of anxious texts from Jo. Jim and Sam exchange back thumps and vague promises to Skype, and Winona stands at the door, wistful, arms folded against the cold, as Jim throws their bags into the back of the SUV.

“I really wish you could stay, Jim,” she says. “You too, Len.”

“I can’t, Mom. Not now.” Jim says, and Leonard holds his breath as Jim, halfway down the front steps, turns to meet his mother’s eyes. “Maybe sometime you can come to California.” Winona’s smile is worth the piercing wind and first flakes of snow swirling in the air. She leans over--Jim is two steps below her--and kisses her son on the cheek.

“Bye, Len, come back soon,” she calls, giving him a little wave and retreating behind the storm door. “I hope it’s warm in Georgia.”

“Yes, ma’am, thanks for everything. And if you do come to California--well, I know some TV writers, if you’re interested. I mean, in getting back into the business.”

“You know people,” Jim says, turning over the ignition and turning the heat on full blast. “Well, look at you.”

“I just thought--I mean, it’s not a real stimulating environment here for someone like her, and I doubt she’s going to be able to take care of that house on her own forever.”

“She’s got a maid and a handyman and she buys that fruitcake at the store. But you should definitely try to talk her into moving to California, because that always works out so well.”

“Well, it does, you know,” Leonard mutters, buckling up. “Sometimes.”

Like any good Georgia boy, Leonard is convinced that a half-dozen snowflakes are enough to make you skid off the road, but Jim’s hand on the wheel is sure, and they make it to the airport before the snow is thick enough to fill Leonard’s head with visions of a Buddy Holly disaster. The plane they pull up to is twice the size of the one they left in, and for a moment, Leonard thinks that Jim has booked him on a commercial flight, until the pilot disembarks and begins the welcome aboard bowing and scraping.

“My family, followed by your family, with a plane ride in between; I figured I could at least do something about the plane.” Jim says. “Merry Christmas.”

Leonard feels ashamed and ungrateful in light of his earlier complaining, but Jim waves his objections away.

“Stop calculating how many orphans you could feed with the money and enjoy it, okay? It’s a part of the economy. Good jobs for aircraft mechanics, plus Captain Tad or Brad or whoever. Enjoy the flowers and the cheese plate, and tell Jo I said hi.”

Leonard can’t kiss or possibly even hug Jim in range of telephoto lenses, so all he can do is stare at him as snowflakes collect in his hair, cheeks pink in the bitter wind, everything Leonard has ever wanted or ever could want, his daughter excepted. He thinks of Jim taking the next magic carpet out of here and spending Christmas poolside, drinking pastel cocktails with other beautiful enigmas. He thinks of his own holiday: borrowing Jo for an evening here, a few hours there, glimpsing other lives through windows and open doors when he picks her up, maybe being invited in (if his mother-in-law is feeling benevolent) for a cup of punch.

Leonard redraws the scene in his mind, this time with Jim at his side, his penumbra of charisma, fame and oblivious bisexuality acting like an extra liter of Old Forester in the egg nog. There’d be curiosity, questions to which he’s sure he won’t have the answers, inquisitions into his private life of the kind Leonard has always dreaded, and above all, the need to explain things to Jo that he’d hoped would wait until she was 16 at least.

In the end, Leonard determines to act bravely out of cowardice as usual, because out of all of that, the only thing that really scares him is the idea of making the flight alone.

“You should come with me. Give the necklace and earrings to Jo yourself.”

“What?” Jim’s eyes narrow like he’s being put on, and it makes Leonard want to laugh and cry.

“You’ve got your bag in the car--come with me. To Georgia.”

Jim’s expression is pure, shocked surprise, and it feels wonderful--giddy, as if the snow isn’t going to ice up the wings and send the plane hurtling to Earth, but turn to joyful winter abstraction, like the inside of a snow globe, the fade-to-white at the end of an old Christmas movie.

Up above the clouds, the sun is shining and he and Jim can be in it for a few hours, and whatever waits for them when they land, they’ll still have that.

“You’re crazy,” Jim says, but his eyes give him away, as if the sun’s already here.

Two hours later, when they arrive to chilly rain, his little girl running toward his arms, and Jim at his side, he still feels it, warm and everlasting.

River Junction (Kirk/McCoy, NC-17), 1/2

2012-12-29T23:22:00Z

This is the third (and probably final) part of the Geography series, a modern-day AU that began with Tallulah Falls and Topanga Canyon. In those stories (which don't have to be read first but hey, give them a shot), Jim is a big-time movie star who meets Leonard, a rural ER doctor, on location in Georgia. Jim sweeps him off his feet and persuades him to move to L.A. Now, with Christmas on its way and Leonard about to go home to see Jo, Jim's hitherto unknown brother, Sam, appears in a gossip rag, suffering from a bad case of food poisoning. Jim goes back to Iowa for the first time in years and drags Leonard along; typical Yuletide family problems ensue.

Great thanks for crunch-time beta reading goes to my wonderful friends merisunshine36 part 1) an sangueuk part 2).

This story is also available on A03.

Word Count: 18K
Content: NC-17 for intermittent but explicit sex, strong language, and non-explicit references to past child abuse

“I swear to God, I thought it was the sashimi I had for lunch.” The man perched on Leonard’s exam table wipes beads of sweat from his forehead and gives a raspy laugh. “My one dying regret was going to be that I left a 25% tip.”

“You did the right thing,” Leonard says. “You should never take a chance with chest pain.” It’s a speech he’s given a hundred times, because it’s true and because men like this need permission from an authority figure to be afraid for their lives.

The guy’s in an exam gown, but Leonard can tell he’s in the Industry: he’s got a golfer’s tan (neck and forearms), an immaculate haircut, pressed khakis and shiny shoes. Leonard can read the guy’s calcium score from the glint of his Rolex and the way his middle-age spread settles over his waistband, but he’s going to order a CT scan anyway. It was a hot topic at last month’s Brown Bag seminar, with most of the doctors feeling it was an expensive insult to their diagnostic skills, but the guy is wealthy and possibly (when not made affable by worry) litigious, and probably would never have set foot in Harbor-UCLA if the ambulance hadn’t brought him there. The system will recover the $3000 from this somehow, which is as close as Leonard comes to believing in karma.

The next three patients are more typical of Leonard’s days: a day laborer with an infected tooth, a skateboarder with a gash in his knee, a college student struggling with her anti-depression meds. They sigh with relief when Leonard walks in, eyes glassy from pain and five-hour waits, and Leonard does everything he can not just to help them but to make them feel at ease, to answer their elliptical questions about the cost of this or that test with assurances that, at least for now, Harbor doesn’t turn anyone away.

It’s taken Leonard less time than he’d expected to readjust to the realities of an urban public hospital. Now it seems like he never left, like his six years in Clarkesville were a rural daydream between New Orleans and L.A. Three times a week he walks through the metal detectors and past the overflowing waiting room than a 12-hour shift will barely make a dent in, and knows that this is where he’s meant to be. The assault on the summit of his career--a teaching position at UCLA, transfer to the more prestigious main campus--can come later, when Jo’s in college and he’s got a few years of unimpeachable service under his belt. In the meantime, he picks up extra shifts and on-calls, tries to focus on his colleagues’ good qualities, and keeps his bitching about red tape and the insanities of the system to a bare minimum.

There are no official Christmas decorations thanks to sackcloth-and-ashes budget cutting by the County, but they’ve appeared anyway, democratic bits of tinsel and snowflakes cut out on the pediatric ward, a tabletop animatronic Santa whose electronic Ho Ho HO makes Leonard want to drop-kick it into the Pacific.

On this Friday evening at the end of three “on” days, Leonard’s eyes are dry, his nerves are vibrating with caffeine, but his conscience is clear. He strides out the door at 8:05 sharp, exchanging good nights with the security guard, feeling grateful he doesn’t have to get on the 405, at least not yet.

He untwists the cap of the O.J. he grabbed on the way out, pulls an iPad from his briefcase, and in seconds is looking at the face of his little girl.

“Hi, Dad,” she says, unimpressed as usual with this miracle of technology.

“Hi, sweetheart.” The cameras in these things aren’t the best--he knows he looks like a jowly ghoul in the dim light of his truck--but he can see that Jo is wearing her favorite Thrashers shirt and is dangling half off her bed in a way that’s orthopedically impossible for anyone over 12. “Anything happen at school today?”

“Nah.” She twists a lock of hair around her finger, a gesture of her mother’s. “Some boys got into a fight, but the teacher stopped them before it got interesting.”

“Too bad.” She shifts, and Leonard sees an unfamiliar silver glint. “What’s that? Do you have something in your ear?”

“Earrings. I got them pierced at the mall this weekend.”

“Really? Mom didn’t mention anything to me about it.”

Jo shrugs. “Nana wanted me to get it done so she could give me Grand-nana’s earrings for Christmas.”

“And what about you? Did you want to get it done?” When Jo looks at the floor, he feels his blood pressure rise a notch. “This isn’t like school or chores, you know. They’re your ears; you can decide whether you want holes in them.” The corners of her mouth inch up, that reluctant smile so like her mother’s, and Leonard decides to quit while he’s ahead, before Daddy gets ranty. “Well, anyway, they look nice. Just remember to clean them with antiseptic every night and follow the instructions they gave you, no cheating. When I come home for Christmas I want to bring you presents, not antibiotics.”

“I’m being careful, Dad,” she says, without a hint of an eyeroll. She’s quiet and intense, not a vocal contrarian like both of her parents, and it worries Leonard sometimes to think that she’s inherited his moodiness. She bites the tip of a nail and Leonard sees that it has polish on it--clear polish, but still. “I wish you were going to be here for Aunt Cathy’s party on Friday. Uncle Ray has a karaoke machine, and we’re going to sing carols.”

Leonard feels the now familiar bidirectional twist in his insides, as half of him feels like the heel of the century for moving away from his little girl and the other rejoices in the fact that he’s a continent away from certain people. “Aunt” Cathy is Joce’s neighbor and her husband is Ray, a guy who thinks owning a construction business makes him an expert on a vast array of socio-economic issues. Leonard usually got a personal exemption from his rants as he was presumed to be soft-hearted and naive (“Those people, Len--don’t look at me like that, I work with them every day, I know how they think”). Imagining what Ray would say about Leonard moving to Hell-Ay to be the semi-kept lover of a bisexual movie star is enough to curdle any hypothetical egg nog.

“I’m sure it’s going to be fun,” Leonard says. “But I’ll be there Sunday morning, okay? I’ll come straight to your house.”

“Okay.” She tugs at a lock of her hair, and Leonard’s heart breaks a little. One more day and he’ll be on a plane back to the old life where part of his heart happens to live. “Love you, kiddo,” he says. “Be good and I’ll see you soon.” He clicks off right about the time his phone peeps at him, too damn many electronic devices in his life demanding his attention. It’s a message from Jim, who’s on a plane somewhere over the continent.

just ate my 3rd cheese plate uuugggh OTOH wine is good, it’s 5 oclck somewhere right?

Leonard has learned to read Jim’s text messages like tea leaves. He sees a certain intimacy in the lack of caps (Jim is perfectly capable of decent punctuation); the Kirk All-Seeing Eye in the fact that whatever time zone Jim is in, he knows that Leonard is off work and off the phone with Jo; and good-natured egotism in wanting an audience for complaints about traveling across oceans in a First Class cocoon of cheese plates and electronic entertainment.

Leonard starts the car--a forest-green SUV on semi-permanent loan from Jim--and starts to pilot it out of the parking lot. The phone peeps again.

You don’t need to pick me up, it’s late; I’ll call the car service.

Because the message is well punctuated and bordering on whiny, Leonard pulls over long enough to type out:

I said I’d pick you up, and I will. You can owe me.

It’s as close as Leonard is likely to get to something smart-ass or sexual, because he’s too superstitious to commit that kind of thing to the dubious permanency of text, and because Jim’s been away for four months in South Africa shooting an international spy thriller and Leonard has no idea how long that is on the Kirk timeline. It’s long enough (Leonard knows from shameful Googling) for Jim to have been linked with co-stars and models, and therefore maybe also to have outgrown whatever cool-burning infatuation inspired him to persuade Leonard to move to Los Angeles. Leonard awaits Jim’s return with all the eagerness of his foolishly loyal heart, but also like a verdict, to see if he’s been demoted to friend, or cast out altogether. On his gloomier days, when the Santa Ana winds blow and the hills catch fire, Leonard combs the real estate listings for bleak but affordable apartments near the hospital. He can’t imagine going back to his old life but he can’t quite believe in his new one, either.

Jim’s plane doesn’t land for another three hours and he doesn’t feel like driving all the way home, so he calls his friend Tonia, a TV writer with an insatiable thirst for coffee and procrastination. The place where she does most of her non-writing is a cafe on Wilshire Boulevard with a menu of hemp tofu and gluten-free pupusas. Leonard gets an omelette and an update on the car-chase-loving vampire family that populates her modestly popular cable show.

“And then for the finale, I need a blood-borne, human-transmitted disease that isn’t HIV,” she says. “What have you got, Doctor?

“Hepatitis?” Leonard says, buttering his rosemary toast. “Viral hemorrhagic fever, if you want something more exotic--Ebola, Marburg, that kind of thing. They’re messy, though.”

“Hmm. Maybe I’ll make one up, unless you’ve reconsidered that consulting gig. We could really use your help; we’re planning a huge multi-car freeway pileup for the season finale. And hey: I’ve got free theater tickets for tomorrow night, if you’re interested. Good pickings this time of year if you’re staying in town. Are you?”

“Nope, headed back to Georgia. And Jim’s coming home later. Tonight, actually.”

“Oh, right--he wrapped Eagle One. On time and on budget--the studio must be happy. And what about you?” She smiles around a bite of salad. “Glad to have your man back home?”

“My man?” Leonard flushes. “Well, I don’t know about that.”

“You underestimate yourself, you know. Just because he doesn’t say it--God, I feel like I give this speech ten times a week. You know what? He should say it. In fact, he’s an asshole if he doesn’t.”

Leonard feels himself scowling, and can’t help a furtive glance around. “You’re presuming I know what it is.”

“You’re young and stupidly hot; you’ll figure it out. But, Len--I was at the salon yesterday, and I brought my iPad, because sometimes I get good work done there, but somehow I ended up reading this tabloid instead. And I found this.” Tonia hands Leonard a crumpled bit of newsprint that looks like it’s been living at the bottom of her handbag. He smooths it out and reads:

JTK Snubs Critically Ill Brother

$100-million hottie Jim Kirk is soaking up the rays (and canoodling with co-star Thika Walton) in sunny South Africa while filming Eagle One. So why is Sam Kirk, 34, in a shared room at a small Iowa hospital, without so much as a card or flowers from his bountiful bro?

The ruggedly handsome Sam--who has the same laser-blue eyes as his movie star sibling--is an engineer for a mining company in grizzly country, a.k.a. Katka Lake, Alaska. He fell ill on a visit to his mom’s farm a week ago and has been laid up ever since, as doctors treat him for an unspecified but serious ailment.

What does Jim think of all this? Sources say the spy-movie stud has barely spoken to Sam since arriving in La-La Land 10 years ago. Is blood thicker than water? Or at least thicker than $1000 bills?

The story is accompanied by a photo of Jim, wearing sunglasses and a frown, up to his slim hips in what Leonard presumes is the Indian Ocean, with the caption Aren’t there phones on the beach, Jim?

Seeing Leonard’s expression, Tonia wrinkles her brow in empathy. “Does he not get along with his brother? Families can be weird about success.”

“I don’t know,” Leonard says. “I didn’t know that he had a brother.”

+++++

Leonard gets to LAX a full half hour before Jim’s flight arrives and waits in the cell phone lot with a cup of takeout coffee and a butterflies in his stomach. He uses the time to search on his phone for evidence of Sam Kirk, finding, after some fat-fingered typing, an engineer at a gold mine in southern Alaska, bitching to the local paper about EPA restrictions.

It takes some mental rearranging to imagine Jim growing up with an older brother, not to mention some conscious avoidance of the Unfortunate Implications of hiding something that big. Jim has been content to let Leonard believe he was birthed when he stepped off a Greyhound bus in downtown L.A., a bright-eyed kid with no history save what would fit in his IMDB profile, and Leonard has been content not to ask for more.

That bright-eyed kid, now getting off an intercontinental flight, sends Leonard another text.

OMW. Fuckers were waiting when I got off the plane.

The fuckers, Leonard knows, are the paparazzi, starved for a good meal of Jim after four months’ absence. Leonard nudges the SUV into the scrum of taxis in front of the international terminal and spots Jim, identifiable form build and his Dodgers cap, head down in the middle of a clutch of bearded guys shoving lenses in his face, electronic flashes going off like strobes.

Leonard, with more aggression than usual, cuts off another car to grab a curb space, leans over and shoves the door open, and a few seconds later Jim is tumbling into the car along with a surprising amount of luggage. Leonard flinches at the noise and light, voices yelling, “Jim! Jim! Do you miss Thika? How ‘bout a smile?”

Jim slams the door hard enough to make the truck shake. “Jesus fuck!” he says. “Go.”

Leonard peels away as Jim shoves his belongings into the back seat and then begins tapping out messages on his phone and talking a mile a minute, in the overtired, overcaffeinated zone that Leonard recognizes from his own more modest travels.

“I have to tell Paul I’m back. And Rob. Should have done this before I exited security, holy fuck those guys were annoying. It’s like, if you smile and wave you look like a cheeseball idiot, but if you keep your head down you look like an ass with 15 people yelling at you, and if I were a normal person walking through that airport I’d be pissed, and--”

Leonard decides not to run a yellow light and steps on the brake a little hard, which makes Jim snap his head out of his cell phone and actually look at him.

“Oh,” Jim says, breaking into a smile. “Hi.”

He’s slightly tanned, jaw lined with reddish stubble and eyes dark with circles. His hair, now that he’s taken his cap off, looks flat and unwashed, and he’s wearing--this multi-millionaire who’s regularly on the cover of men’s magazines--a plain white T-shirt under an old leather jacket that’s balding at the cuffs.

Leonard is so damn glad to be able to look at him that he doesn’t notice that the light has changed until the asshole behind him beeps.

“It’s good to see you, too,” Jim says with familiar, indulgent mockery, and Leonard manages to calm down enough to get onto the 405 without getting them both killed.

+++++

Jim opens his door with a sigh that probably goes back to Odysseus and lets Leonard carry in his bags. He hasn’t been in the house since Jim’s been away, even though Jim left him the key. There’s been no need, even as friendly courtesy; Jim has a staff of minions, seen and unseen, to clean the house and groom the yard and stock the refrigerator. Still, the house has reverted to that unlived-in smell, the one that reminds you your presence is temporary. Leonard’s version, in the Georgia hills, is dust and woodsmoke; Jim’s is lemon polish and an orchid blooming on the coffee table.

There’s an empty-house silence, and Leonard suddenly feels as if he’s among the things that don’t belong.

“So,” he says, “I guess I’ll--”

And then Jim pulls him into a hug, decisive and thumping, more brotherly than intimate, but Leonard doesn’t care. He hugs back, grateful for the familiar contours of Jim’s bones under warm flesh and thin T-shirt, and then stands there immobile with relief as Jim kisses him, hard, on the mouth. His taste is familiar, too, Leonard’s personal chemistry still finely tuned to Jim’s, even after all these months.

“Did you fuck anybody while I was gone?” Jim asks, not letting him go.

“I don’t know what the right answer is,” Leonard says, too punch-drunk to be annoyed, “but the honest answer is ‘no.’”

“Too bad.” Jim doesn’t seem entirely disappointed. “Although I guess that means the sheets are clean.”

“I would never--”

“I know, I know. C’mon, I want food and bed. I’m all about the monosyllables, for now. You know I’m completely wasted at the moment? So ignore me if I start rambling about lions or motorcycles or this Swedish vampire movie I watched on the plane. No subtitles; it was awesome.”

Leonard’s about to take his jacket off and follow Jim into the kitchen when his hand brushes against the folded-up tablet article in his pocket. It’s so tempting to ignore it, to follow Jim’s path of flipped-on lights into the kitchen, to use the excuse that they’re both tired and it’s probably just tabloid lies, anyway.

If it were anything but family, he would.

“Hey, Jim?”

“Yeees?” Jim is kicking off his shoes, sending them flying in two directions while ripping open a bag of tortilla chips.

“There’s something--well, you may already know about it, but in case you don’t--I just don’t know what the situation is, so it’s probably better that you know.”

“Oh, jeez.” Jim’s weary eyes are suddenly bright and curious. “What terrible thing did you do? Dent the car? Wash the whites with the colors?” And then, when Leonard doesn’t answer right away, “What is it? You can tell me. I don’t throw things, I promise.”

“It’s not me,” Leonard says, passing the clip to Jim between two fingers, carefully, like it’s infectious. “It’s this.”

He watches Jim’s eyes scan back and forth, trying to read Jim’s face as Jim reads the article. Halfway through, a crease forms between his eyes, and the corners of his mouth turn down.

“Oh, shit. What’s this from? And when?”

“This week’s Standard. I’m not sure when it came out.” And then, because he can’t hold it in, “Is any of that true? Do you really have a brother?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.” Jim is still staring a hole into the page. Without looking away, he pulls his phone out of his back pocket. “Give me a sec, okay?”

“Sure.” Leonard exiles himself to the darkness of the living room, but the house is all wood and open spaces, so it’s hard not to eavesdrop (not that Leonard is trying hard not to).

“It’s me. Yeah, hi, you too. What the hell is going on?” There’s a pause. “Uh huh, right, which is why I had to read it in some trashy-ass tabloid. You have my phone number. Yeah. Oh, yeah? Well, I was in South Africa, but you could have called Paul, he always--”

Leonard hears the door to the deck open and Jim’s voice fades, leaving Leonard in the gloom, staring at near-bare walls and the ghost-shapes of furniture. Long minutes pass--Leonard puts his jacket on and takes it off again, twice--and finally he gets up the courage to follow Jim outside. He’s leaning against the railing, arms folded, framed by early evening stars.

“It’s fine,” Jim says, as Leonard opens and closes his mouth like a fish, trying to think of something to say. “Sam’s okay; he’s in the hospital getting dialysis for kidney failure. He got E. coli--I guess that’s food poisoning?--and had some kind of complications.”

Leonard may have no idea what relationship Jim has with his brother, but he recognizes the stress that comes from lack of knowledge.

“Hemolytic uremic syndrome, most likely,” he says. “About 10 percent of E. coli cases involve the production of Shiga toxin, and a small percentage of those have serious complications. If he’s in the hospital, then he’s getting treatment and he should be fine.”

“Good,” Jim says, nodding. “Good, good. That’s good.”

When Jim’s head doesn’t lift up again, there’s nothing for it but to put his hands on Jim’s shoulders. They tense, as if he might shrug Leonard off, but then Jim is leaning into him, sliding his hands down Leonard’s sides to his waist, resting on his hips in a way that feels so good that Leonard sighs audibly.

“It’s okay,” Jim says. “I’m not about to melt down on you. This family shit--it happens every now and then.” He leans in closer, Jim’s body so warm against the night air that raises goosebumps on Leonard’s arms.

“‘Well, you know. Tis the season.” He’d like to wrap his arms around Jim but senses that it would be better to keep still, hold him in equilibrium while Jim tries to wrap his head around whatever’s going on with his family.

After a few minutes, Jim straightens, supporting his own weight. “You working tomorrow?”

“Nope. Packing and--” The and is Leonard’s hope but not presumption that he’ll be spending time with Jim.

“Good.” Jim pulls away and walks toward the door with sock-footed caution. “You coming? Somehow talking to my mom didn’t ruin my appetite.”

They scrounge in the fridge, pretty good scrounging that includes cheese and olives and fresh Greek yogurt, no doubt stocked by Paul, Jim’s personal assistant.

“When are you leaving?” Jim asks, eating yogurt with his finger in a way that’s crude but fascinating. “For Christmas I mean.”

“Flight’s at 11:30 tomorrow night.”

“Is Jo excited? What are you getting her?”

“She’s at the age where they mostly want cash. Good thing; I’ll be damned if I know what to get a 13-year-old.”

“Me neither.” Jim wipes his hands on his jeans and goes to rifle through his luggage, returning with a couple of small packages. The one wrapped in tissue turns out to be little animals--elephants and lions--made of gold wire and beads. The flat, square box holds a necklace with a single, small blue gemstone and matching earrings.

“It’s tanzanite,” Jim says. “Before you freak out, it’s wasn’t that expensive. I know Jo’s not a girly girl but this kind of thing is pretty classic, right?”

Jim’s mild but palpable anxiety touches Leonard more than he can say. JIm has only seen Jo twice, once for an afternoon of surfing and once for a day at Universal Studios, during her summer vacation trips to the coast. Jo had been as dazzled as any near-rural teen would be at meeting Daddy’s movie star friend, but Leonard had neither expected nor wanted any kind of deep connection, and had limited Jo’s exposure in a way that he hasn’t been able to limit his own, shielding her from the inevitable break-up of whatever this loosely defined thing he has with Jim actually is. The sight of this little bit of permanence, bound for Jo and, by chance, exactly the color of Jim’s eyes, makes Leonard grip the edge of the granite countertop.

“She just got her ears pierced,” Leonard says. “It’s perfect. Thanks for thinking about her.”

“No problem. It’s the least I could do since you were such an asshole about bringing her out there on safari.”

“Joce barely lets her fly out here with a professional nanny. Wild animals were out of the question.”

“Yeah, I’m sure Jocelyn was terrified. Pierced ears--really? What’s next? Boys? Girls? Boy- and-girl motorcycle-riding Reiki therapists? The world is full of wild animals, old man. God, you’re going to lose your shit when she gets her license. I’m babbling, aren’t I? I think I’m done with being vertical for a while.” He hooks an arm around Leonard’s waist. “Let’s go to bed.”

Leonard’s relief is complete and pathetic, his shameful secret that it means as much to him as sex, these simple things like having the freedom to tidy up Jim’s kitchen while he takes a shower, to strip to his underwear and lie on Jim’s bed reacquainting himself with the room, the blond wood and modern art, the lack of clutter and hiding places that Leonard associates with somewhere that’s been lived in. He’s never questioned Jim’s lack of history, of the collected effluvia of life, but now, thinking about Jim’s brother, Leonard wonders if they’re somewhere in this house: the high school yearbook, the dog-eared paperbacks, some sentimental items from a father who, Leonard knows (from furtive Internet searches and nowhere else) died in an accident the year he was born. Leonard understands that, in his line of work, Jim Kirk has to be his own, original creation, but he has no idea how far down that goes--to a basement, or maybe an attic somewhere, where the pieces of Jim’s original life remain.

Jim comes out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam, rosy and reborn. Leonard’s starved eyes take in as much as they can while trying not to be too obvious, though his stomach sinks a little in disappointment when Jim pulls a pair of PJ bottoms from the dresser.

“Sorry,” he says, pulling them on. “Kitchen is closed. I’ve been thinking about fucking you for three months, but--” he runs a hand through his damp hair. “I’m tired, and--” Leonard, who’s usually tongue-tied during these kinds of silences, aches to fill them with something like I know you’re worried about your brother, but the truth is that he doesn’t know. “I am, as they say, getting too old for that shit. They had me doing that fuckin’ James Bond stuff, motorcycles and wire work and I guess it’ll look amazing when they put it all together, but I hurt all over.”

“Congratulations, you’re old.”

Not quite able to invite Jim into his own bed, Leonard flips the covers back. Jim rolls in with a groan, coming to rest with his head against Leonard’s shoulder and an arm around his waist. It’s like sinking into warm water, not only because Jim’s flesh is warm and Leonard has been missing this for long and lonely months. His efforts to build himself a defensive wall--throwing himself into work, cultivating friends, making himself explore the dry hills and canyons--aren’t working because Jim can breach them with a hand on his bare skin. He should be terrified but he’s giddy instead, so happy just to be here with Jim’s legs tangled in his, Jim’s breathing getting heavy and thick as he’s pulled into sleep before Leonard can even turn out the light.

Some time in the grey pre-dawn, he wakes to find that Jim’s moved away and is lying on his back, sheets clutched around him, staring at the ceiling.

“Hey,” Leonard says softly. “Are you having trouble sleeping? Did you take the melatonin like I said?”

There’s a long pause in which Leonard isn’t sure what state Jim’s in--conscious, unconscious, or groggy--and then Jim sighs and says, “I always kind of figured that son of a bitch would kill himself. I just didn’t think it would be in Iowa.”

Leonard’s not frightened by this turn of events--it’s a relief, actually--but he still has to choose his words carefully. “Is that why he moved to Alaska? To get away?” It’s an easy guess; Alaska and California are the closest thing the country has to a frontier, the places young men go.

“Pretty much. He got his first mining job when he was 17; he hitchhiked to South Dakota. I couldn’t believe it; that is some cowboy-era shit, and maybe we grew up in the middle of nowhere but we had Nintendo and the Internet and he could have gone to college if he wanted. Instead he busted his ass and I don’t know how many bones until the gold mine shut down, and then he kept going, north and west, like he never wanted to be found.”

“How much older is he than you?”

“Four years. It’s funny, it doesn’t seem like a lot now.”

But it made a difference then, Leonard is sure. He gets a vivid and maybe wholly inaccurate picture in his head of 13-year-old Jim watching his older brother stuff a couple of T-shirts into a backpack and head out the door. Leonard reaches out and finds Jim’s hand in the darkness, and holds it. After a few moments, Jim squeezes back.

Leonard waits, the way Jim taught him before paddling into a wave, timing his moment, and then says, “You should go see him. He’s young and healthy, so he’s probably in no danger. But things happen--I see it all the time. And I see the people who got there too late. There’s nothing sadder than two people who were fighting when one of them dies, because there aren’t many grudges that survive past death, but that knowledge comes too late for one of them.”

Jim shifts and tenses a little, digesting this.

“I don’t hate him,” he says. “I just feel like he gave up the right to say anything about my life when he left like that.”

“Has he tried to contact you since?” Leonard shifts closer, not touching Jim so much as framing him with his own body.

“A couple of times, just to let me know where he is. The last time was when he moved to Alaska.”

“Well, that’s something, right? Everybody knows how much money you have now. Seems he didn’t change his tune when you got it.”

“You don’t understand Sam; Grandma used to say he wouldn’t take a glass of water if he was on fire. It must be pissing him off, lying in a hospital bed with a catheter up his ass or whatever.”

“Catheters don’t usually go in your ass. But yes, if he’s a big, able-bodied mountain man, he’s probably pretty pissed off.” Leonard tries to triangulate Jim with this brief sketch of Sam. The independence, the desire to invent himself--those sound like Jim, but the hard-edged outdoorsman capable of holding onto one-half of a grudge leaves Leonard squarely on the fence about Sam Kirk.

“Mom’s problem, not mine.” Jim shifts sideways, into the circle of Leonard’s arms; not at all unwilling, Leonard tightens them around Jim, resting a hand on his belly. Jim give a little grunt and rearranges himself so that Leonard’s hand shifts lower. Leonard’s unsurprised, not only because it’s Jim, but because proximity to death, however remote, has been known to have this effect on people. Leonard slides a hand down into his pajama bottoms and cups him, enjoying the feel of Jim warm in his hand, a living thing if not appropriate to metaphors.

“You can keep going,” Jim says. “If you want.”

Leonard most certainly wants. He slips a hand into the waistband of Jim’s PJs and finds a pleasant arrangement of flannel and flesh, Jim half-hard when Leonard takes him gratefully in hand. His cock is a wonder, long and smooth and almost perfectly symmetric, capable of shutting down even Leonard’s noisy brain with its irreducible masculine power.

A few lazy slides of his hand and Jim is rising, swelling in a way that’s beautiful even though Leonard can’t see it. It’s a tiny miracle, this rise of flesh, and Leonard feels proud and privileged every time it happens. He doesn’t get to do this often (Jim having a bit of an oral fixation) so he makes the most of it as Jim relaxes back against him, sore, jet-lagged body releasing the thousands of miles. Leonard believes in romance but he also believes in the ordinary things people do for each other, and this is one of them, a 4 AM hand job for the weary heart.

Not wanting to raise either of their heart rates, Leonard focuses on pressure rather than speed, gripping Jim’s firm-soft flesh rhythmically while burying his face in Jim’s neck for something a little sloppier than a kiss. Jim smells like hundred-dollar soap and the lingering scent of away, disinfectant and foreign airports, something like wood smoke clinging to his luggage. The way Jim squirms and arches is delicious, each shift bringing a different part of his body into contact with Leonard’s, each familiar and beloved. It’s nothing but love, and Leonard knows it, though it frightens him too much to think about in the daylight. Here, though, with Jim in his arms, needing him, it’s easy--so easy to touch the right places in the right ways, to nuzzle Jim’s ear so that his lips part and he gasps, a perfect little sound.

Leonard feels Jim’s stomach muscles clench the moment before he shoots, accompanied by a terse unh, simple and economical. In the gloom Leonard can see Jim’s bright eyes squeezed shut. Leonard gives a few more gentle squeezes--Jim is enviably tolerant of touch after he comes--and rolls over so he can pull Jim away from the wet spot, not hard to do in a bed the size of a prairie. Jim curls against him, already half asleep if he was ever fully awake to begin with.

“I owe you one,” Jim mumbles.

“You don’t owe me anything,” Leonard says, but Jim is already gone.

+++++

Leonard rises with the birds as usual, body unable to shake off the days when he’s up at 6:30 to fight the traffic downtown. He makes coffee and carries it out to the deck, reading news on his tablet, which he acknowledges is an abysmal time waster and something that he now can’t live without.

An hour later Jim shuffles out to join him, tousled and bleary and looking so far short of dazzling that it fills Leonard with affection. Jim drops heavily into a chair, sucks down what’s left of Leonard’s second cup, and faceplants onto his crossed forearms.

“Sleep well?”

The blond head raises up, barely supported by his hands. “If by ‘well’ you mean like some giant, upside-down, hibernating--” he gestures vaguely “--bat thing that--I don’t know, there was one in this cave that we filmed in but they told me there are no vampires in Africa. But I had pretty good dreams because I dreamed that somebody gave me an amazing hand job, so there’s that. And now I feel bad because I didn’t get you anything. From South Africa, I mean. I didn’t know what to get.”

Leonard doesn’t bother to point out that Jim has gotten him a house and a car (loaned them, anyway) and a new life where he can drink French press coffee while looking at the distant peaks of the San Gabriel mountains. “You remembered Jo. That’s more than enough.”

“Yeah, well. The thing is, I have to ask you for a favor.”

Leonard’s first thought is happiness, tempered by the realization that Jim probably needs to rebook their planned New Year’s weekend. Its outlines are vague--a ski lodge, a fireplace and turtlenecks, many bottles of champagne--but as Jim reminds him often and obnoxiously, logistics are for little people.

“Shoot,” Leonard says.

Jim gives him a long, red-eyed stare. “I need you to come to Iowa with me. It won’t be that big of a hassle; Paul booked a private jet direct to Iowa City. Sam is at the university hospital, mom will be there with him. Make sure Sam isn’t dying, get him a decent doctor, take mom out to dinner, drop off some Christmas gifts. We’ll have to stay overnight but we can leave first thing in the morning. It’s possible that in 2012 there’s a hotel in Iowa City that isn’t complete crap.”

Leonard, instantly dry-mouthed, struggles for something to say. “Not a bad plan, but--aren’t you going to stay for Christmas?” He realizes, with some guilt, that he doesn’t know what Jim’s plans would have been otherwise--never asked, in fact, because he was too focused on the parts of the holidays that included him.

“I don’t want to. I don’t want to go at all. But some pushy fucker guilted me into it at 4 in the morning with a bunch of doctory death talk and a hand job.” Jim flops back in the chair, looking martyred and exhausted. “All this because Sam ate some bad walrus sushi--serious complications from E. coli are rare in adults, I looked it up, and of course it has to be Iowa and Christmas and Mom. God, I should have stayed in S.A. another week and gone to Sun City to grill myself on a lounge chair. They have the biggest artificial wave lake in--somewhere. Oh, well, I’m sure the Sheraton Bumfuck has an indoor pool. It’ll be be full of children and used Band-Aids; you’ll love it.”

The possibility that Jim is being serious reminds Leonard of a cold truth, which must show on his face before he can open his mouth.

“I would have come back for New Year’s,” Jim says. “Even if I’d stayed in South Africa. So you’re in, right?” He’s on full alert now that the caffeine has kicked in, leaning forward into Leonard’s space and tapping out a nervous tattoo with his foot.

“I would if I could,” Leonard says helplessly. “I’m leaving tonight.”

“We’ll get you a flight direct from Iowa City. Habersham County has running water so it probably has an airport. You’ll be there at most a few hours later than before.”

There are times when Leonard finds Jim’s easy control of time and space reassuring, but this isn’t one of them. “Okay, but--” Looking at Jim’s eyes, shot through with red and so expectant, it’s hard to sort through which of the buts he wants to lay on the table. “Jo is expecting me, and your family isn’t. This isn’t the kind of thing you should bring a stranger into.”

“A stranger? I was under the impression I knew you pretty well.”

“A stranger to them. I mean, I’m assuming, if you don’t talk to them much.”

“I don’t talk to them, but I send them a running list of everybody I’m fucking,” he says a bit snappishly. “No, you’re right, they don’t know who you are, but you’re a doctor. You can make sure Sam’s getting the care he needs. The university hospital is actually pretty good, but you can never get a straight answer out of those people. One of the many reasons I hate hospitals.”

“You know you can’t just walk into a hospital and start practicing medicine. In any case, without access to--” Leonard is stopped dead by the look on Jim’s face. Of course his medical opinion isn’t the reason Jim wants Leonard there. Jim is saying please with every tired line of his body, and if Leonard isn’t fond of walking into lions’ dens, he’ll do it out of gratitude if nothing else, because while many things in the situation are unclear, the fact that Jim needs a friend is not. “Okay. Okay, sure. I’ll just have to call Jocelyn, let her know about the change in plans.”

The relief on Jim’s face almost makes up for the unpleasantness of having to call his ex-wife from his movie-star lover’s house.

“All right,” she says, when Leonard tells her he’s going to be late. “Jo’s going to be disappointed; she wanted you to take her to Stoney’s for waffles. She’s got every hour that you’re here planned out--you do know that? She was fretting that you were going to get stuck in traffic coming up from Atlanta, and now I’m going to have to tell her you won’t be here until the afternoon. I guess you’re being held over at the hospital?”

There’s a guilt-inducing pause--not that Leonard needs to feel any guiltier than he does. “Sort of. It’s not my schedule, it’s--Jim’s brother is in the hospital. Not here, Iowa City. It came up suddenly.”

Leonard knows exactly what calculus is going on in Joce’s head right now: the degree to which she has a right to be pissed off by a mention of Leonard’s boyfriend of uncertain status, or annoyed that his plans are interfering with hers, given that Leonard’s spent the last six years of family gatherings orbiting like a satellite around first the Darnells and now Joce, Clay and their families. Last Christmas Eve Leonard had read Dickens by his fire, with a glass of bourbon and a roast chicken for company. When he arrived to give Jo his presents and take her out to see a movie, he’d felt like an unwilling Scrooge, looking through the open door into a scene of domestic felicity he’d left in his past. If it gave Joce satisfaction, he can hardly blame her.

“Oh,” she says. “Okay. I hope it’s not serious. Traffic might still be a problem, though. What time do you think it’s safe to tell her you’ll be here?”

“I’ll text you when I know for sure, but I’m probably coming into the county airport, not Hartsfield.”

“I see,” she says, a bit stiffly. “You’re going to have to pick Jo up if you want to do something with her tomorrow; we’re having company. And I need her back by 7 for dinner.”

“Not a problem,” Leonard says. “Merry Christmas. Almost Christmas, anyway.”

Leonard says goodbye and turns back toward white desert sunshine streaming into the floor-length windows and remembers that it’s the solstice, an astronomical fact but hardly relevant in this land of perpetual sunshine and age of artificial light. They’ll be traveling north, into winter, and to what else, Leonard has no idea.

+++++

The outward, mine-is-bigger trappings of wealth don’t impress Leonard, but the ease of it does. Within an hour, while Leonard and Jim are still lounging half-naked on the deck, Paul makes the back end of Leonard’s travel arrangements, swings by his house to pack his clothes and Christmas gifts, and drops everything off with a bag of fresh croissants.

Paul drives them himself, in Leonard’s SUV, up the winding canyon road toward the Van Nuys airport. After all this time, Leonard still finds the landscape unsettling and the drive nauseating: hairpin turns carved out of dry hillsides spewing gravel into the road, hidden entrances, vast wealth with no more than a mailbox and a glimpse of Italian cypresses poking above the scrubby native shrubs. Then they round a bend and get an unobstructed view of the valley, haze smudging but not obscuring the mountains, patches of forest densely green against the buff-colored grass, and Leonard wants for a wild moment to tell Paul to turn the car around, so they won’t have to go to Iowa or Georgia or anywhere but here.

A quarter hour later they’re at the Van Nuys Airport, a sprawling collection of buildings and airplanes, and drive pretty much directly onto the tarmac. Leonard’s just feeling a bit pleased with himself--recognizing that by agreeing to come with Jim he’s avoided the horror of pre-holiday LAX with its many citizens trying to take gift-wrapped packages through security--until he sees the plane they’re walking toward.

“Sweet Mother of Mercy, what is that thing?” The little plane looks like something a child would operate with a remote control.

“It’s a jet,” Jim says, as if Leonard’s being stupid. “Nice one, too. Hawker 1000?” he asks the pilot, whose crisp uniform does nothing to disguise the fact that he looks young enough to be in high school.

“Yes, sir. My name is Joe, and I’ll be your pilot today; this is Tad, my co-pilot. Please come aboard and make yourselves comfortable.” Leonard would laugh at that suggestion if he had any air in his lungs.

Paul, faithful to the last, carries their bags on board and then exits; the pilots board, and Jim jogs up the steps with presidential vigor, pausing in the doorway to look back down at Leonard, gold hair blowing in what is clearly a stiff crosswind.

“You coming, or would you rather take the bus?” he yells.

It’s the friendliest kind of shaming, and there’s nothing Leonard can do but make his legs move, up the stairs, through the door (Jim protects his head from the low clearance like he’s a perp on a cop show) and into the far-from-spacious interior, like a flying minivan with half-dozen leather seats, a stack of magazines, and a little clutch of fresh flowers (a funereal touch that Leonard appreciates).

Jim settles down into one of the seats and props his long legs on the one opposite. “Sorry, I forgot about your flying thing. But I’m not sure what you expected--In-flight disco? Pole-dancing flight attendants?”

“No, but--something bigger.”

“Sorry, I’m an actor, not a boy band. But I’m sure Joe will keep us up to speed on everything that’s going on. Right, Joe?”

“Oh, please God, no,” Leonard whispers, hunkering down into his own seat. The engine starts and the sudden noise and vibration has Leonard flailing for something to hold onto. What he finds is Jim’s hand.

“It’s okay,” he says, amused but tolerant. “These things are pretty safe. You were in more danger on the canyon road, especially the way Paul drives. I promise you, promise, that you’ll be eating steak and overcooked vegetables in central Iowa tonight. Okay?” He squeezes Leonard’s hand before letting it go. “Promise.”

As always, there’s a magic to Jim’s confidence, a desperate belief on Leonard’s part that Jim can bend reality to suit him, whether through force of will, wealth, or that weird power known as luck, something Leonard has never possessed but is happy to share in the fruits of. That conviction lasts him through the terror of takeoff, the little plane’s ascent over the snow-capped Sierras, until they’re in the broken clouds above the checkerboard of flyover country.

Jim--jet-lagged and unmoved by Leonard’s pleas to buckle up--folds himself into the little sofa at the rear of the cabin and goes to sleep, depriving Leonard of any last chances to find out exactly what the hell he’s gotten himself into. Leonard tries to read a book on his tablet but keeps getting distracted by his fractious inner voice, asking him how many more leaps into the unknown a guy can reasonably be expected to make.

At cruising altitude, Leonard reaches a truce with his roiling stomach and rewards himself with a sandwich from the galley. Jim wakes, groggy and a bit cranky, as they begin the noisy descent, Leonard clutching his armrest and trying to distract himself with the golden blaze of the setting sun.

“Wow, it’s really changed,” Jim says, looking down at the quilt of farms and pin-straight roads.

“Really?”

“Of course not. It never changes. They can build all the casinos they want; it’s still the same.”

“You been back since you left?” Leonard asks through gritted teeth, digging his fingers into the plush leather seat.

“Once, for my high school reunion. It was a dumb idea; the only two people I wanted to see didn’t show, and everybody was super weird to me, and I caved to PR pressure and let a celeb magazine run a spread on it: Celebrities, They’re Just Like Us! They make awkward conversation with people they may or may not have gone down on behind the temporary classroom trailer while drunk!” At Leonard’s raised eyebrow, Jim adds, “I was ‘Bad’ in high school. I started a year ahead, but I barely graduated. In the end, I think they gave me my degree to get rid of me.”

Any questions Leonard may have had are cut off by a sudden jolt that Leonard’s heart interprets as dying, but is actually the plane landing.

“See?” Jim says. “I’m a ranger, and a ranger always keeps his promises.” He gives Leonard a few seconds of heroic jawline before cracking up. “Oh, God, that’s a line from the movie. Isn’t it the worst?”

Leonard finds his fleece-lined jacket in his luggage and by the time he disembarks, he’s almost feeling gracious enough to thank the pilot. There’s yet another SUV waiting for the them on the tarmac, handed over by yet another sandy-haired minion, but this one’s eyes visibly spark when they meet Jim’s, and Jim reflexively pulls down his ball cap and hunches his shoulders, loading his bag and Leonard’s while his eyes scan the horizon like he’s looking for snipers. It’s blustery and chilly-not the brisk, sparkling cold Leonard associates with a northern winter, but a bone-chilling damp, and Leonard climbs into the truck and unapologetically reaches for the seat warmer button.

“Georgia boy,” Jim says with affection. “I hope you brought something warmer, because the weather varies between ‘generally shitty’ and ‘really fucking sucks.’”

“I have no idea what I brought because I didn’t bring it,” Leonard complains, fogging up the window.

“No problem; we can always drop by Walmart and get you something puffy in camo.”

Jim steers onto the concrete two-lane road with his usual easy confidence. The early evening gloom settles on brown fields and low buildings of unknown purpose, segueing as they near the city into the usual suburban cruft of fast-food joints and tire places.

“This was the big city,” Jim says pointing at the six-story buildings of downtown. “Can you fucking believe it? There was one movie theater in Riverside, and it hardly ever showed anything R rated. This was the Promised Land, especially the campus before the cracked down on drinking; getting a college ID was the best $20 I ever spent. And the women--oh, my God. Before I discovered the campus I used to hang out with these outsider kids who liked abandoned buildings and smoking, but the girls were big bundles of family drama and I had enough of that anyway. The university--those kids were fun, but they had a future.”

“But apparently college didn’t agree with you?”

“River Bluffs Community College of the Outer Rust Belt sure as fuck didn’t, but that’s because I didn’t want to be an aircraft mechanic or an accountant. No offense to those people, they were nice, but I didn’t want to do anything except disappear. I felt like there was nothing on the planet that could interest me.”

Leonard grabs the armrest as Jim takes a sharp turn into a parking garage just short of a blue H sign and corkscrews up the ramp--Leonard has never visited a hospital that had enough parking--pulls into a space, and then sits there with the key still in the ignition and a very un-Jim like air of indecision.

“I guess we should go in,” he says, not moving.

“You could call them first. Let ‘em know you’re coming.”

Jim grins a little in the darkness. “But that would spoil the surprise.”

“You mean you--you didn’t tell them you were coming here? Jim, you’re unbelievable! You don’t just walk in there after not seeing them for--how long?”

“Four years. But that’s their problem. We’re here to make sure Sam’s okay, get him anything he needs, and then get the fuck out before I get sucked into whatever codependent mess they’ve got going on. And don’t give me that look--if it hadn’t been for you we could have been on the beach today, so please enjoy the next six hours of my miserable family life.”

Jim slams the car door harder than he needs to and Leonard represses the impulse to match him slam-for-slam, because it is stressful, and the check-in process doesn’t make it any easier, Jim unhappily providing his ID and receiving an ill-concealed look of extreme interest from the nice lady at the front desk. It offends Leonard’s professional dignity to think there’s a mole in here somewhere, selling out the Kirk family’s privacy for pieces of silver and page 20 of a cheap tabloid.

Sam’s room is halfway down the hall on the third floor. The surroundings of a hospital--people in scrubs, equipment carts, double doors that swing in--are as familiar as Leonard’s back yard, but Jim goes pale and silent as they approach the room.

Leonard hears two voices, one male and one female, arguing.

“Just wait another hour until the doctor gets here,” the woman’s voice pleads. “I can’t have you collapsing in the house, what would I do? I can’t pick you up and it’s a half-hour ambulance ride.”

“I’m fine, ma,” the man’s voice says. “I know what ‘observation’ means; it means they just want to bill me for another night.”

Jim cocks an I-told-you-so eyebrow, takes a deep breath, and then--grabbing the sleeve of Leonard’s jacket, presumably so he can’t run away--walks into the room.

Sam Kirk is sitting on the edge of his bed, face pale under a heavy, reddish beard, bare feet dangling. He’s huge--even taller than Jim--burly, and intimidating in spite of the fact that he’s wearing a snowflake-patterned hospital gown that barely keeps him legal. Leaning over him is a petite woman with a cloud of blonde hair whose pale blue eyes Leonard sees for the first time widened in unmitigated shock.

A bunch of things happen at once: Leonard lunges forward to steady Mrs. Kirk, who he’s afraid might faint dead away. Sam lumbers to his feet and grabs Jim in a bear hug; Jim staggers back, knocking over a (fortunately empty) bed pan that lands on the floor with a clang. The noise startles Sam, who overbalances and falls back toward the bed, half-dragging and half-assisted by Mrs. Kirk, who tries to reach out to Jim at the same time. Leonard’s trying to extricate himself from this tangle of familial limbs when a nurse appears in the doorway, holding a pressure cuff and a blood draw kit.

“Oh,” she says, as the frantic motion comes to a halt. “You have visitors. I’ll come back later.”

That gives Mrs. Kirk a chance to smooth the front of her white knit dress and straighten the sprig of sparkly fake holly pinned to her shoulder.

“It’s wonderful to see you,” she says. “Such a nice surprise.”

Sam props a giant, bare calf up on the bed and folds his arms. “Me, too. Now you can tell Mom that I’m fine, and that I don’t need to spend another day in this fuckin’ hellhole.”

Sam does not look fine. He’s panting hard after his brief exertion, pale and clammy with dull, visible bruises at his blood draw sites. Leonard infers anemia from hemolytic uremic syndrome paired with a bad attitude toward medical care that bodes ill for his ability to take care of himself.

“I came to make sure you weren’t dying.” Jim mouth is tight, his face ungenerous. “You look alive to me, and as much of a son of a bitch as ever.”

Sam just gives a dazzling Kirk grin that makes Leonard wonder what Mrs. Kirk put in the cornflakes when the boys were growing up. “Is this all it takes to get you here for Christmas? I should have puked up my guts in the hospital a long time ago.”

“Jim,” his mother says, and Jim’s head whips around, expression on the verge of belligerent. “Why don’t you sit down and visit a bit?”

It’s a request so minor that Jim goes ahead and obeys, dropping into the ugly vinyl-covered guest chair, while his mother perches on the edge of Sam’s bed. That leaves Leonard standing there, a welcome distraction.

“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Kirk says, calm as if she’s serving tea, “you are--?”

“McCoy, Leonard McCoy. I’m a doctor, uh, ma’am.”

He extends his hand and she takes it in her own small one. “I’m Winona Kirk, Sam’s mother. Are you the nephrologist Dr. Walters said would be coming by?”

“No, I’m not a doctor at this hospital.” It’s the least informative thing he can say; he glances at Jim in appeal.

“He’s a friend,” Jim says. “On the staff at UCLA.”

“I need a gut flush, not a nose job,” Sam says.

“I’m an E.R. doctor,” Leonard says, a bit defensively. “That the way you came in? Sudden high fever and gastrointestinal symptoms?”

“We were having dinner,” Mrs. Kirk says, “and his stomach started bothering him.”

Jim snorts. “Did you cook?”

“We tried the buffet at the casino. It was Crab Night.”

“Two thousand miles from the ocean? No way that could have gone wrong.”

“When was that?” Leonard’s doing his best to cling to his professional demeanor.

“Monday night,” Sam says. “I felt like hell for 24 hours, but I thought I was getting over it. Then I ate a peanut butter sandwich and it was armageddon in my gut.” He kicks the metal rim of his bed impatiently. “But I’m fine now. Another day of watching fuckin’ talk shows and I’m gonna lose my mind. Can you get me out of here, Doc?”

Leonard looks at the assembled Kirks--Jim, sullen and stiff-jawed, slumped down in the blue visitor’s chair; Winona, bright-eyed and hopeful in the presence of her two sons; and Sam, sweaty and piratical, maybe in the grip of a neurotoxin or maybe just born that way--and resolves to do his best, and to get out of there with all due haste.

It takes a good bit of coordination and chasing around halls to get a handle on things. Sam’s doctor is determined at first to keep him overnight for observation (“Mr. Kirk is not the most compliant patient”) but yields to a follow-up appointment with a nephrologist and the assurance that Leonard will be nearby. That necessitates, of course, that Leonard will be nearby, not in a hotel half an hour away.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Jim says, his exclamation tailing off into a whisper when Leonard shushes him because they’re standing in the hallway. “I do not want to spend the night in that house.”

“It’s just one night, Jim. They can’t force Sam to stay here; he can check himself out against medical advice if he wants to, and between you and me, irritability is one of the clinical signs of his condition. You can’t give antibiotics for an e. coli infection, so he’s just going to have to get over it on his own.”

“So let’s find him a doctor to babysit him. A doctor other than you.”

“Why not me, Jim? Isn’t that why we came here?”

“Because this is how they operate. It’s one thing, and then it’s another, and they next thing you know you’re sucked back into their lives--”

“I’m sorry, Jim, but I don’t see a conspiracy here, unless you’re suggesting that Sam somehow got exposed to shiga toxin on purpose. I see a sick man with more than a little of the Kirk pigheadedness, and I see a worried mother. Now, it doesn’t take a genius to see that there are some kind of huge interpersonal problems going on here, but whatever it is, one night won’t kill you.”

“Fine. Fine.” Jim kicks at the metal flashing on the wall, for want of anything better to kick. “Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Part 2 >>

Cafecito (Natasha Romanoff/Bruce Banner, NC-17)

2012-09-19T00:30:06Z

Summary: Written for this lovely prompt on the Avengers kink meme. Short version: "The more he thinks about it, the more Bruce feels guilty about that whole trying to kill Nat on the helicarrier thing. The fact that he's attracted to her doesn't help, and he dodges her, burying himself in his work. Meanwhile, Natasha's been meaning to talk to him and make it clear that she's not scared of the other guy anymore, that there are no hard feelings over the incident...The UST is especially difficult because he thinks in general it'll get ugly if he tries to have sex at all, but Nat thinks otherwise, and maybe the best approach is for her to take the lead and let him relax and enjoy it."

Length: 8,500

Content: NC-17 for explicit sex and language

Notes: Thanks to the OP for the wonderful prompt, and for continued support while I posted it in not-very-forthcoming chunks. Both were much appreciated!

Also available on A03.

“Just to let you know, the coffee of the day is--oh, shit, it’s you!”

Natasha manages to catch the server’s wrist before a pitcher of ice water cascades into her lap.

“God, I’m sorry, I just--” The pitcher lands safely on the table, but the woman--20ish, awkward, not a professional and so most likely a student--is trembling anyway. “I know I’m being, like, a massive dork, but I just want to say thank you. For keeping us safe, for stopping the--”

“No problem,” Natasha says, staying still so as not to feed the woman’s nervous energy. She adjusts her sunglasses, a hint. The woman stares at her for a long moment and then nods, blunt-cut hair bobbing, acknowledging Natasha’s unspoken request. She fills her water glass without spilling and then turns away, steady enough to serve another customer.

Natasha is happy to find her own powers still reasonably intact.

She pulls out a two-day-old copy of the International Herald Tribune as a deterrent to further starstruck gratitude, even though she knows it’s too late, here and everywhere: she is that least useful of things, a famous spy. In a way, it was inevitable: her reputation had been in its late stages anyway, cannibalizing itself, creating expectations that to some extent could be manipulated. But now she’s on the cover of magazines, a guardian of the planet, recruited by fate onto the side of light, the wall between herself and her old life looking, in her mind, something like the three-story water wall in the atrium of Stark Tower.

She finishes her pastelito and heads out onto Seventh Avenue. It’s mid-morning and the air is already hot and thick, the last burst of cool air mixing the scent of coffee into rotting garbage.

She looks up and down the street. Indecision and lack of purpose are novel feelings. She hasn’t had a gig in a week; Fury’s mostly had her checking in with the larger crime syndicates, looking for alien fingerprints. Her day is her own. She could go to a museum, or shopping, or she could buy a book and read it cover to cover.

In the end, though, she recognizes those thoughts as deceptions. She’s going back to Stark Tower, because she can’t stay away.

+++++

The night of the battle, Tony takes them all back to his well-architected playpen, which has just enough undamaged floor space to offer them all a place to sleep. Tony is a man for whom no is an abstract concept, and as usual he gets his way, mixing cocktails among the ruins while Thor tries to teach them Asgardian drinking songs. They’re beyond exhaustion, full of the feverish joy of survival. Natasha can’t say she doesn’t feel it, but there’s something melancholy about it, too--knowledge that it’s the first time of many, that along the way some of the will fall or get turned, that Natasha can’t jump off the carousel now that there are people depending on her. Worse still, she’s responsible for them; for Clint in particular, since he has to live with the knowledge of what she saved him from. He sits on the outer edge of the boisterous group, always the watcher, but his eyes slide toward her whenever he thinks she isn’t looking, with a quiet hunger that’s never been there before.

It’s too much. She waits until they’re laughing and distracted, slips down to the lab level, and lets herself out onto the terrace. Below her, the air is still thick with dust and panic. The sirens are nonstop, cops with bullhorns ordering people off the street, but they’re New Yorkers and unlikely to let a little thing like alien invasion get in the way of their evening plans. Above her, the sky where the portal opened is clear, a calm interplanetary sea lit with a pale quarter moon.

After a few minutes, the door slides open and Bruce steps out, walks right to the edge without seeing her because he’s not a spy and his powers of observation are turned inward. He’s showered and shaved and wearing borrowed clothes and it’s brave that he tries so hard to go through the motions of life. Or maybe its defiant, how he reminds himself and everyone else that he’s human.

“Bruce?” She says softly, trying not to startle him.

He jumps a little anyway. “Oh. Sorry. I didn’t know you were out here.” He raises his hands, that ancient, disarming human gesture, and starts to back away.

“It’s okay,” she says. “I’ve just had a little too much of the glory of warriors in Odin’s heavenly halls for one evening.” She waves him toward her, but he ducks his head and angles it away, a primate’s way of avoiding conflict. He’s smart enough to have studied animal behavior, but maybe desperate enough to have learned it instinctively, in whatever dark places he’s been.

“Come on,” she says. “I won’t bite.”

He gives a half-smile, not sure which one of them the joke is about, walks to the railing a few arms lengths away, and peers down into the night.

She wants not to mind. She wants not to be aware of the thing inside him, waiting like some kind of mutant Jack-in-the-Box to spring. But she can’t; just one crank of the handle and she’s gripping the handrail tightly enough to feel her nails pressing into her palms.

Bruce is either too polite or too distracted to notice. “Not one lost life--incredible,” he says. “I wonder how many billions it’ll cost to clean up. I only hope they don’t send me the bill, like last time.”

“You should charge them. You did an army’s worth of work.”

“Me? I didn’t--oh.” There’s a long pause before Bruce can force himself to look at her. “You know, that’s never what I think of first. That must sound ridiculous, but I don’t remember any of it, so it’s like it didn’t happen. But I know it did, just like I know--”

“Don’t,” she says, at the first hint of stress in his voice--maybe too sharply, because he flinches a little. “Don’t apologize, I mean. If that’s what you were going to do.”

“You don’t need to give me the it’s not your fault speech,” he says heavily. “I know it was. The truth is that I was out of practice. All that noise and light--aliens and helicarriers--it was too much. I should have known. I should have said no, back in Kolkata. Assuming I had an option.”

She sees an opening, something she can give him in exchange for his guilt, since he won’t accept her forgiveness. “I wasn’t honest with you, you know. Fury wanted your knowledge, yes, but he also knew it might come to this.” She points at the broken skyline.

“I could have killed you,” he says voice huskier than usual. “At the very least, I made you afraid for your life.”

She can’t help remembering, then: the drop in pressure, the rush of wind, the fear of falling, and then the look in Bruce’s eyes--the awful, naked loss of control. She’d felt terror but also compassion, and she tries to let Bruce see it now.

“You came through when it mattered,” she says. “As far as I’m concerned, the final tally is the one that counts.”

“I hope I have a long life, then.” He makes that face like he’s made a joke only he can understand.

She just nods and pats the railing next to her, encouraging him to slide over. He moves, a little at a time, until he’s close enough to touch, even though it makes her skin prickle. It’s pointless to be rankled by the unfairness of it, but she’d give a lot to purge herself of this feeling, to be able to treat Bruce the way Tony--that ironclad asshole--does: as a human being.

Beyond the rubble it’s a beautiful spring night, and the wind has shifted, so that the air smells of something better than dust and diesel. The breeze stirs Bruce’s hair and the open collar of his shirt. She guesses it’s Tony’s; it looks expensive and a little snug on Bruce, but not unflatteringly so. He’s not a hero or a god but a handsome man on the cusp of middle age, wreathed in a humble, weary nobility that Natasha finds interesting, even attractive.

“What?” Bruce whispers, catching the smile on her lips and smiling in turn.

“I was just thinking,” she says, “that you look as old as I feel.”

He laughs, finally relaxing now that he thinks she’s making fun of him, and doesn’t resist when she rests her hand on his shoulder. She wonders whether he can feel it trembling.

The door opens and she pulls her hand away a little too quickly, not sure why until she realizes how relieved she is that it isn’t Clint.

“There you are,” Tony says from the open door. He’s enunciating carefully, the way drunk people do. “In case you were annoyed by how annoying we were being, I thought I’d let you know that the flaming shots are over and we’ve decided to watch Ghostbusters. I seriously doubt anyone’s going to be able to stay awake for more than 30 minutes, so if you want to join in the fun, you’d better come now.” He disappears for a second, then sticks his head out again. “Popcorn cart’s in the lobby.”

“You’d think they’d have seen enough weird things over Manhattan for one night,” Bruce says, shrugging. “I guess we better go in. Wouldn’t want to anyone to get ideas.” He gives one of those self-deprecating smiles, as if the very thought is ridiculous, and then offers her his arm, like they’re going to the Met Ball, not a drunken superhero sleepover.

Natasha’s ability to judge human behavior isn’t just an instinct; she considers it one of her senses. But as she steps through the glass door with her hand tight on Bruce’s forearm, she has to wonder where the thought has come from that it might be a very good idea to seduce Bruce Banner.

+++++

“Transtanium?” Natasha says, peering at the pale silver sample in the vacuum chamber. “So it’s got a name now?”

“Thanks to Dr. Chiang at NYU,” Bruce says. He’s perched on a lab stool, arms folded and legs crossed at the ankles, looking at ease for once. “Very convenient for the Physics Department that bits of the stuff rained down on their campus.”

“You sound envious. No, don’t pretend you’re not,” she teases, as Bruce turns his head away to hide his smile. “Earth’s scientists are doing a bad job pretending they’re not thrilled we got invaded by evil aliens. So what about you, Doctor? Is there a Nobel Prize in your future?”

“Me? Well.” Bruce pulls the tail of his shirt loose and uses it to wipe his glasses. “I’m a one-trick pony, I’m afraid. I have some theories about the effects of gamma rays on its nuclear structure, but unfortunately that thing in the kitchen is an espresso machine, not a reactor. I can do the mathematical models, but I’ve got no gamma ray source.” Natasha wonders how he manages never to sound bitter.

“You really think General Ross would track you down to the Physics Department NYU? Would he even bother, now that you’re a planetary hero?”

Bruce laughs and pulls out a stool for her, but she hops up on the lab bench instead. The surface feels pleasantly cool under her thighs; she’s spent the morning in an under-air-conditioned truck running a wiretap.

“If I’m lucky, Ross still thinks I’m in India,” Bruce says. “If I’m really lucky, he thinks I’m dead. And thinking I’ve been successful at anything is just going to make him madder.”

“You’re going to have to explain to me, some time, why he hates you so much.”

“That wasn’t in the file?” Bruce raises an eyebrow; it’s an open secret between them that Natasha read everything that SHIELD had on him during the vetting process. “All right, then. Maybe. Some night over drinks. Preferably at the end of the world.”

There’s a slightly uncomfortable silence during which the smile fades from Bruce’s face and his thoughts turn inward. Natasha tries to get his attention back by dangling one of the beige pumps from her toe. The four-inch heels are impossible for real work but fine for a sit-down job, and the extra height helps when she’s working with cops.

Bruce’s gaze slides up her leg to her face, more with curiosity than admiration. “Not that I don’t enjoy your company, but...why are you here?”

A hundred plausible excuses spring to mind, but she’d rather not lie to Bruce, so she settles for an evasion. “Why do you think I’m here?”

“Pulling the tiger’s tail, maybe? Not like Tony. He’s--” A smile tugs at the corners of Bruce’s mouth. “He’s a speed freak. Tell him that something’s dangerous, that he can’t have it, and he just wants it more. But you...maybe it’s the way you deal with things that scare you. Not confrontation. Gradual exposure, until you unlearn being scared.”

It’s uncomfortably close to the truth, but she keeps her face placid, her shoulders relaxed. “I’m not scared of you.”

“You were.” Suddenly the edge is there, that little bit of Bruce that stays angry, like the flash of red on the sole of her shoe. Her heart beats a little faster, not entirely in fear. “I saw your face, back on the helicarrier. It’s the last thing I remember.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“It was less than a month.” He’s not angry, not now; he’s baffled, and trying to protect her. She slides down from the lab bench, easy and balanced, even in platform pumps. He can’t see that she’s the tiger here.

“A month?” she says. “That’s an eternity.”

“Good,” he says. “Because that’s how much longer I’m planning to stay here. Before I head back on the road.”

“I’ll do my best to help you make the most of your time,” she says. She doesn’t mind; she’s always worked better under pressure.

+++++

“Oh, come on...you have to at least try a bite.” The pastelito is pineapple, her favorite, crusted with sugar but not too sweet inside. Bruce tries to take it from her hand but instead she holds it for him. He nibbles off a corner, then looks with resignation at his bowl of fruit and mug of steamed milk.

“You’re like some kind of urban monk, the way you live,” she says. “I couldn’t give up coffee. I hate not having a cigarette in my hand right now.” She glances around the cafe, all corrugated steel and arty photos of decaying buildings, clearly run by exiles, but they make the coffee the right way, by putting the sugar right in with the grounds. “I used to spend whole afternoons in a place like this--well, not like this, exactly, but it smells right. Except if it were Havana, there would be cigar smoke.”

Bruce just nods and sips cautiously at his milk, licking the foam from his mouth. She’s glad she brought him here; if the lab is Bruce’s home turf, the cafe can pass for her own. With her sunglasses on, she can watch his lips without apology. Bruce is like a quiet landscape, easy to overlook at first, but full of beautiful details. His eyes alone say more than comes out of most people’s mouths. He’d make a terrible spy.

“Do you mind if I ask you something?” he says after a minute.

“Shoot.”

“All right.” He gets one of those little preempting smiles. “You seem way too young to have had all the experiences you talk about. Are you a sleeper like Steve? Do you really remember when Castro’s beard was short?”

He’s not only smart, he’s observant; a watcher, like Clint. “Let’s just say I remember a time when I thought ordinary people, together, could do anything.” She pops the last bite of pastry in her mouth and licks the sugar from her finger. “How’s that for an answer?”

“It’s breathtakingly cynical,” Bruce says, but this time his eyes don’t drop to the table. “Enough to convince me that you’re as old as I think you are. In spirit, anyway.”

He holds her gaze for a moment and Natasha is sure there’s something there, a buzz that’s more than caffeine and sugar. Over Bruce’s shoulder, Natasha can see the server shooting curious looks their way, probably wondering if Bruce is Natasha’s professor, her older lover, or both.

“Good,” Natasha says, pushing her plate aside and leaning on the table. “Now it’s my turn. Can I ask you a personal question?”

“You already know my college GPA, my blood type, and probably what brand of boxers I wear, so why not?”

“Okay.” She bites her lower lip, to make him think she’s hesitating and also to get him to look at it. “Have you ever been in love?”

Knowing Bruce--at least a little--she’d guessed the answer would be yes. She isn’t prepared for the brief but unmistakable look of agony that passes over his face.

“Why would you--” He frowns, and winces, and draws his brows together, and finally forces his face into something like its usual affable calm. “No, no I haven’t. I’m exactly as boring as you think I am. No caffeine, no meat, no anger no love. No sugar,” he says, and glances at her crumb-strewn plate. “Well, not very often.”

She’s sorry she caused him pain, but that’s often the price of information, and now she can be confident that he won’t fall in love with her. Love, it seems, is another fire that Bruce has learned not to touch.

+++++

Natasha swipes her finger over the lab’s biometric lock and lets herself in so quietly that Bruce doesn’t look up from his computer screen. She’s chosen her clothes carefully--black leggings, flats, a white blouse with open just far enough to show a pear-shaped diamond pendant. Bruce values neatness and dignity, whistling into the storm, but most of all he values honesty, and this is as comfortable as Natasha can feel without actually being in her work clothes.

“Hey,” she says, doing reserved more easily than usual, because she’s decided to go forward with this even though she’s not entirely certain what this is.

“Hi,” he says, glancing up over his glasses, attention still mostly on his work. She likes the way his hands move, the way their precision reflects the acuity of his mind. “I thought you were chasing that sub in the North Atlantic with Cap.”

“Nah. Not much chance for hand-to-hand; he took Clint instead.” She pushes her hands into her pockets and rocks back on her heels. “I haven’t seen Tony in here in a while. Where is he?”

“In the Mojave with Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes. They are, and I quote, ‘scaring rabbits and blowing tumbleweeds into the next county’.”

Natasha knows where Tony is, of course, but it’s a convenient way of reminding Bruce that they’re functionally alone in the penthouse. “And you didn’t want to go with them? Sounds like fun.”

Bruce, now fully distracted, finally takes his hands off the keyboard. “Air Force base just didn’t seem like the smartest place for me to be.”

“Even with Tony?” She takes a few steps toward him. “So he’s not their private-industry pinup boy any more?”

“No, I’d say he’s just switched departments--more DOE than DOD these days. But alternative energy is a volatile market, and something’s got to pay for all this.” He gestures around him, at the top-of-the-line equipment, at the lab that has more than a little self-conscious Dr. No high style.

“Is that why you’re leaving?” She folds her arms; it’s a bit confrontational, but it’s time to start forcing some points. “You don’t want to taint him by association?”

“That’s one reason.” He lets his eyes glide over her face, giving her a bit of hope that she’s another.

“But why stay at all? You could have left at the beginning, when Thor did.”

“You know why.”

“Because the Council wanted us around, in case the first invasion was just a test run,” she says. They also thought the public would feel safer, which is why Natasha’s been making cover-killing rounds of the local constabulary. “And?”

“Because Tony wanted me to work on some things for him, and it seemed like the least I could do.”

“And?” She’s been moving closer with every question, watching for the moment when he tenses up, but his hands hang lax, if somewhat protective, in his lap.

“Because I like it here. It’s cool, it’s quiet, it’s got everything I could need or want.” His smile is rueful, as if that’s a weakness. He glances down at her feet. “Not the only one enjoying the fruits of capitalism. I’m bad at these things, but that’s a Chanel logo, right?”

“There’s nothing wrong with taking your reward for a job well done,” she says, even though he’s right--maybe because of the frictionless luxury of Stark Tower, or maybe out of boredom, she’s been taking more pleasure than usual in bourgeois pursuits. The silk and diamonds are trappings, tools--they aren’t her, and she suddenly feels itchy to be rid of them. Skin is what she’s been craving all these weeks, and Bruce’s skin--pale from living indoors, darkened with stubble along his jawline--is improbably tempting. Under its spell, she reaches out and runs a finger across his cheek.

He flinches, just a little. “Please tell me that’s not what you’re giving me now,” he says, wary but sympathetic. “Please tell me you’ve never had to do that.”

“I’ve never had to do anything,” she says, a lie so big it’s almost the truth. “I do whatever it takes to succeed. The mission is what’s important. So anything I do to help it along is doing what I want, right?” She frowns, not sure how he put her on the defensive, which is the last place she wants to be right now.

“Just wish I knew what the mission was,” he says. He reaches out and frees a strand of hair caught in the chain of her necklace, and she manages not to flinch. “You’re too deep for me, Agent Romanoff. Been trying to figure it out for weeks--the lab visits, the coffee dates. What could SHIELD want that it hasn’t already got from me? I said ‘yes’ to the Avengers, ‘no’ to the microchip--but you didn’t expect otherwise, did you? So, have you been slipping something into my steamed milk? Softening me up for--what?”

With his excess of caution, Bruce can talk himself out of anything--maybe her, too, because he’s so fucking reasonable, and if she puts what she has in mind into words, it’s going to sound reckless and desperate. But time’s running out, and she doesn’t want to spend what’s left in cautious conversation. So Natasha answers him by dropping her hands onto his shoulders and kissing him, hard, on the lips. He doesn’t respond--she was ready for that--but he doesn’t stiffen and push her off, either.

When she draws back, he’s laughing.

“Oh, God,” he says, wiping her lipstick from his smiling mouth with the back of his hand. “I deserved that. Cold War stereotypes--Boris and Natasha--those four-inch heels. I’m an idiot. What do I have that you wouldn’t just ask for, if you wanted it? You’ve always been nice about asking.”

She picks up his left hand and holds it between her own, plan forgotten for the moment because he gets to her in a way she can’t explain.

“I want us to part as friends, Bruce,” she says. His hand feels warm and good, and she has a sudden desire to feel it on her body. “That’s all it is. I wouldn’t lie to you about that. Like you said, what would be the point? But there’s something between us that’s getting in the way.”

“What’s that?” he asks softly, lowering his head like he’s expecting a reproach.

“The helicarrier,” she says. “What you think you did to me. What you probably think you’re doing to me right now, even though I’ve never felt less afraid of anyone in my life.”

“You should be. You know that.” He tries to sound stern, but his hand tightens reflexively on her own. “Complacency isn’t smart. I told Tony what he was risking, how he was probably voiding his insurance policy just by having me here, but--”

“He’s not a good judge of risk, is he? Well, I am. I’ve dealt with bigger threats with you, and I’ve mitigated those risks. By observing, learning, taking countermeasures. And I’ve observed you, Dr. Banner. You’re so good at keeping people at arm’s length, nicely and politely, so they don’t have to feel guilty about rejecting you.” She pushes her hand back through his hair; it’s thick and soft, silver threads glinting under the halogen lights. “But that’s not going to work with me. I’m here, and we’re going to deal with this. We’re going to deal with each other. Yeah, like that,” she says, smiling in spite of herself at the look of incredulity on his face.

“You’re serious? That’s such a terrible idea, you don’t even know.” He squirms, tries to push himself out of her grasp, but she’s got a firm hand on the back of his neck. “It’s very--sweet, I guess, to try to solve our little interpersonal problem this way, but I don’t do this. Not with anybody. If you think caffeine is bad--” He grimaces, tries to pry her hand of his neck, but settles for running his own hand through his hair in bemused frustration.

His medical records were part of his file, so she knows that the gamma radiation protects him from disease but also rendered him sterile. Any other effects the Army probably hadn’t seen the need to mention, so she strokes the back of his neck a little and asks, “Are you still physically capable of it? If not, that’s fine. There are other things we could do.”

“No,” he says, masculine pride finally showing through. “I can do it, I just won’t. The idea of hurting anybody, of hurting you that way--”

“I know, I know.” She shushes him with a brush of fingers over his lips. “That’s good, because I’d prefer sex. And you’re going to let me handle the risk mitigation, okay? It doesn’t have to be--I don’t know, heaving chests and clawing at the walls. It can be slow and quiet, as slow as you want. No need to raise your heart rate.”

This time he looks at her more frankly, at her face and at the place where her open collar stops just above her cleavage. “With you involved, that’s pretty much impossible.”

“So you’re not a monk after all. Good.” She slides off his glasses, folds them, and lays them on top of his keyboard.

“I’m not saying yes,” he says, blinking at her, dark eyes unreadable.

“But you’re not saying no.” She takes a little step back, so he can really look at her; with Bruce still perched on his stool, they’re almost at eye level.

She remembers the first time she took the trapeze in her hands and jumped off the high platform into the darkness below. Not a leap of faith: she’d practiced, trained, so that she understood what gravity would do. Still, it wasn’t something you could do by increments; you had to decide, and then commit.

She commits now, to Bruce. She throws her arms around his neck and puts herself in his space, feels him tense and then force himself to relax, something that must come as naturally to him by now as breathing.

He hesitates just for a second, and then hooks his arm around her waist, resting it against the curve of her hip, and slides his hand up under her shirt to stroke her lower back. His hand feels as good as she hoped, careful, and there’s a latent confidence, as in rusty skills that might be coaxed back to life. She wants more of it, more of his hands on her skin, more of his attention on her and less on the thing inside him. She arches her back, just a little, in a way that’s frankly sexual, a challenge.

He answers by pulling her closer, into the space between his knees. This time, when she leans in to kiss him, his lips part and his mouth is warm and wet, lips careful, but she can feel the little hitch when the desire kicks in, like a gear falling into place. His hands frame her hips, tighten on her, not clutching but supportive.

Wisps of memories float around them as they kiss. He tastes a little smoky, like late nights, the coffee and wine that he doesn’t touch; remote, forgotten places that he’s drifted through. Natasha’s left her share of lovers in those kinds of places; most of them haven’t been as gentle as Bruce, who kisses her with more regretful fondness than passion as he keeps his tongue and hands mostly to himself.

She’s never seen more than a decorous glimpse of bare chest at his collar. She unbuttons his shirt to his waist and then pulls out the tails to hang loose, admiring the thick, dark hair over a lean build, well-formed bones. She traces a hand down his chest, lets her fingernails scratch lightly so that he bites his lip and squeezes his eyes shut. Natasha has always appreciated subtlety, and she knows a lot about nerves and the human body. She runs the backs of her fingers over his nipples and he shudders, goose flesh rising as she slips his shirt off his shoulders and lets it fall to the floor.

“I feel like the tin man,” he says, voice raspy. “Like I’ve been left to rust in the rain for a long time.” He takes a strand of her hair between his fingers. “You’re so beautiful. I know you know that; maybe you’re bored with hearing it. But it’s a long time since I’ve let myself want anything beautiful, anything soft.”

“I’m not soft,” she says, and he chuckles.

“I know. But when you’re me, the world looks like it’s made of glass.”

She answers him by unbuttoning her shirt; not a performance, because he doesn’t need that kind of seduction. She’s got an ordinary white bra on, the diamond hanging like a guide star between her breasts, but Bruce can only stare, dry-mouthed, hands twitching. She feels like she’s shedding her worries with her clothes. There’s nothing fraught about this; it’s easy, it’s human, and Bruce is only flesh and blood.

“Come on, Bruce,” Natasha says, feeling oddly wholesome about the whole thing, like she’s channeling Steve, or giving one of Tony’s pep talks. “There isn’t anyone else here. It’s just us.”

He nods, slowly, and then reaches around to unhook her bra; his scientist’s brain, used to envisioning abstract shapes, gets it on the first try. She helps him by shrugging it off, letting it slide down her shoulders. He fills his hands with her, feeling the weight of her breasts, brushing his thumbs over her nipples so lightly that she shivers. There’s nothing possessive about him; it’s as if he’s borrowing every touch, eyes searching her face a little anxiously to make sure he’s pleasing her, that he still has her permission.

“You’re more dangerous than I ever imagined,” he half whispers, watching his fingertips trace over her skin. “You could destroy cities.”

“You’re harder up than I thought. I don’t do mass destruction; I focus on one person at a time. But not you,” she says, as he starts to kiss her breasts. “I’m not planning anything bad for you.”

Natasha runs her fingers through the short, curling hair at the base of Bruce’s neck. It feels so soft, his mouth on her so good, that it takes her a couple of tries before she grips it tight and tugs his head back. His head jerks up, startled, shocked almost into retreat, but she kisses her reassurance, hard and quick.

“This is good,” she says, pressing against him so he won’t bolt. She can feel the excited thump of his heart against her chest, see in his eyes that he’s both exhilarated and scared. “It’s normal. Right? There are probably a hundred thousand people in the city doing this right now. Like ordering takeout or going to the movies. Hey, we should do that, before you go--see a really shitty movie together. I know lots of good ways to sneak in liquor.” She’s cupping his ass, aggressively, because he’s squirming, distracted enough to enjoy the attention and maybe the ticklish spot at the crease of his thigh.

“You want to go on a date?” he asks, flatly disbelieving, even though their groins are pressed together and she can feel his erection through the modest pleats of his no-name khakis.

“Sure, if you want to call it that. But that’s second on the list. First I want to fuck you, Bruce.” He flushes and blinks, but she doesn’t think it’s from shyness. “Yeah, I said it, and I mean it. Do you like that? Do you like dirty talk?” She brings her lips closer to his ear and strokes his erection through his pants. “I bet you do. You’re very verbal, but you calibrate the way you talk to your audience. All part of the protective coloration.” She starts unbuckling his belt, the leather supple and warm from his body. “This is Tony’s, isn’t it? You wouldn’t buy anything this nice, even with his money. But the rest--the boring shirts, the glasses, the Bruce Banner costume. Trying to get people to look away. But I’ve been looking at you for a long time, Dr. Banner, and liking what I see.” She slides down the zipper of his fly and slips her hand inside, and when she makes contact, even through the cotton of his boxers, he jerks like he’s been shocked.

This is the way she likes it best, when she doesn’t have to pretend--to be shy, to be sentimental, to be anything but someone who wants what she wants. What Bruce wants, she’s not sure; she would have bet on control and choices, but now she’s thinking that maybe he’s tired of responsibility and endless restraint.

“Oh, God,” he gasps, swelling into her touch. “Just--be careful, it’s been so long--” His breath hitches as she traces the outline of his cock with her thumb.

“You think you could come, just from this?” She keeps stroking, around the head. His cock is well proportioned, not large but nicely thick, from what she can feel. “Go right ahead. The pants wouldn’t be much of a loss.”

“No, but I--” He tries to finish the sentence, and can’t. She’s right where she wants to be, in between Bruce’s body and his brain.

“You want to come in me, instead?” She’s using a soft version of her normal voice, no need for the phone-sex rasp when it’s the words that are doing it for Bruce. “You want to feel how hot I am?”

That gets through to the animal part of Bruce’s brain--lizard or ape or Hulk, she’s not sure. He lunges forward, arms pulling her tight, but he doesn’t thrust against her or grab for her clothes--he kisses her, not hard, but with an intensity of longing that takes her breath. He’s pressed against her, hard as ever, and she wants badly to feel his naked flesh against her, to take him inside her so she can put an end to that terrible, self-contained loneliness for a little while.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, ragged, when he finally lets her mouth go.

“Don’t be,” she says, laying a hand against his cheek. “Everything’s fine. It’s beautiful.” She kicks off her shoes and unzips her pants, Bruce helping her keep her balance because he’s gallant, even if his hands are trembling.

When she’s gotten rid of everything but her underwear, she glances around, planning their next move. “Chair?” she asks. “Floor seems kind of hard, and I’ve never done it on a lab bench.”

“I can’t recommend it,” he says, and gives a shuddering laugh, surprised at his own joke. “There’s a sofa in the back. I crash there sometimes when I’m working late.” He looks at her, unapologetically naked except for a pair of dark red underwear, and holds out his hand. She lets him lead her to what appears to be last year’s model of white, haute-mod sofa, parked between the bathroom and the eye washing station.

She makes a grab for Bruce’s pants before the geometry can get awkward again. They hit the floor with a thunk of belt buckle; his resilient erection tents out the faded cotton of his boxers. He takes the hint and steps out of his shoes, Natasha wishing she’d let him keep his glasses on because it’s a sweet little performance right up to and including the moment he puts his thumbs in the waistband of his underwear and looks at her for permission.

“Go for it,” she says. “But slowly.” She stretches out, back arching against the sofa, arms over her head lifting up her breasts, knees apart, commanding. His eyes roam over with a wistful kind of hunger.

“I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed,” he says. “I’m not a big man.”

She doesn’t let her mind go to the obvious place. “So you say.” She makes a bring it on gesture. “Let’s see.”

There’s nothing graceful about men stripping their bottoms off, but Bruce does his best, carefully pulling down his boxers, kicking them aside, and standing in front of her with his hands on his hips, not blushing but with an I-told-you-so look on his face and a lock of greying hair falling into his eyes. In point of fact, Natasha’s hands captured the situation pretty well: Bruce’s cock is robustly erect and well proportioned to a body that must have been beautiful in youth, and is now aging prematurely but with character, like a leather-bound book.

Bruce’s wandering eyes find the V of her underwear and she knows beyond a doubt that he’d go down on her if she let him, would be skilled and tender. She flushes a little at the thought and then pushes it away, because it’s too intimate and they’re heading into dangerous emotional territory anyway. Instead, she hooks her toes around his calf and pulls him nearer, then reaches out and runs a fingertip under the full length of his cock. Bruce shudders from head to foot and fails to stifle a whine.

She likes the sound, so she does it again.

“Fuck,” he whispers, biting his lip and scrunching his eyes closed, but staying put.

“Got you to curse,” she says, not stopping. “What do you want me to do? Tell me.”

“Aaaahh,” he says with a shiver, as she runs her fingertip around his cock head, giving him a little bit of nail. “Just--grab it or something because that’s--”

“Grab what, Bruce?” She’s only teasing because he likes it, because it’s making him quiver and smile and forget his self-consciousness.

He arches an eyebrow at her, professorial. “Grab my cock, please, Natasha. If you wouldn’t mind.”

She blows him a kiss and before he can laugh wraps her fingers around him and squeezes, not too tight, just enough to make him moan. His skin is hot and velvety; she strokes her other hand down the fine curve of his ass and daydreams a little about an afternoon that will never happen, in some European hotel--the Baltschug or the George V, somewhere with a view and a huge bed and room service and aimless hours to play. But they’re under fluorescent lights and they’re on the clock, and it always seems to be this way, Clint and Bruce being only the latest in her long run of prisoners of duty.

She plays with him for a while, seeing sunshine with her inner eyes, and wondering if Bruce is seeing it, too.

When she lets go and takes his hand instead, his eyes crack open like he’s coming back from a dream, brain awash in pleasant chemicals that make his skin warm and his body relaxed. Feeling chilly and envious, Natasha pulls him onto the sofa next to her.

“What do you want?” he asks, still holding her hand. “What can I do for you?” His voice is gentle, sincere; she has less doubt than ever about what she wants.

“You know what,” she says, wriggling closer, so that she’s half in his lap. “Go on, undress me.”

He smiles, and she’s close enough to see the crinkles around his eyes. It’s hard to believe that in his life, in that life, he’s found so much to smile about. He slips his thumbs into the thin waistband of her underwear and slips them down over her hips, turning it into a caress. His hands stroke over her, warm against cool skin, and she likes the way he still looks into her eyes even while he’s groping her elsewhere with good-natured enjoyment.

While Bruce’s hands are busy, she grips his shoulders and uses her leverage to nudge him back against the pillows. He’s a pushover, quite literally, an easy target even if he weren’t so willing to let her have her way. He’s handsome laid out beneath her, face relaxed and intent, gaze mostly on her face but dipping down to watch her breasts swinging gently as she positions herself over him, rubbing herself lightly across the smooth hardness of his cock. His eyes flutter half-closed at the touch and he strokes her shoulders, cups his hands around her breasts with care, falling into old patterns the way people do, the memory of old lovers ghosting across the skin of new ones. She wants to become one of Bruce’s memories, wants to close the distance between them, to seal their friendship with his cock inside of her, but when she tries to move into position, he stops her with a tight grip on her arm.

“You know, don’t you?” His voice isn’t sharp, but his eyes have gone a little hard. “That it’s safe?”

She remembers the file, and the truth of Bruce’s body, laid out in scans and blood test results.

“I’m sorry,” she says, meaning it. “I wasn’t looking for that specifically. I just needed to know as much as I could.” It’s not the whole truth, and Bruce knows it; when she ducks her head in apology he brushes her hair away from her face.

She’s not always brave, so sometimes she has to put herself in positions where courage is the only choice. She did it in Kolkata, when she told the men with the guns to stay outside, that she’d meet Dr. Banner alone and try to reason with him. She did it again when she came here on purpose to make herself vulnerable to Bruce, but stripping off her clothes is proving a lot easier than admitting the truth.

He waits, hands unmoving, cock still hard against her. In the shade of her body, his pupils are dilated, eyes brown without a hint of green.

“I looked because I was afraid,” she says finally. “The files on you--they’re like a thesaurus for everything you could have a nightmare about. Destructive, out of control, unstoppable--the more you beat them, the more they had to create this mythology about Bruce Banner, the fugitive mad scientist. I wasn’t think of you as a human being, Bruce; I was thinking of you as a target, and anything in there was fair game. So yes, I know that the gamma radiation kills contagious diseases, and I know--” She swallows, doing her best to hide compassion that she’s not sure he’ll accept. “I know you can’t have children. I’m sorry if that’s something you want. I talked to a little girl near the clinic--she knew who you were, because she said you were learning to read Bengali together, out of old newspapers. I’m sorry, Bruce. Sorry for lying and sorry for being afraid.”

Natasha isn’t crying, not exactly, but she’s half-collapsed on Bruce’s chest, shaking with some delayed reaction to the shadows on the wall of that dark shanty, to the pounding of footsteps on metal decking, to dragons in the sky over Manhattan. And Bruce, who has every reason to resent her detached professionalism when it’s wrapped in high-tech mesh just folds his arms around her naked body and pulls her close.

“You have nothing to be sorry about,” he whispers, breath soft in her ear. “You were right. I couldn’t have hurt you. I didn’t want to, from the beginning. I could tell you’d been hurt so much already.”

She lets him hold her, stroke her hair, and she pets him back, at least the parts she can reach--the sides of his thighs, the curve of his waist--feeling him tremble underneath her. It’s a shock to know that he sees through her, that he has from the beginning, but she trusts him with the knowledge because it’s something that they have in common, like a ghost-child between them.

“It’s all right,” she says. “That was a long time ago. And we’re both okay now, and we’re here. That’s all that matters.”

She reaches between her legs for his erection, starting to flag at last, and grips it firmly. Her giddy fearlessness is gone; it’s Blitz spirit now, a determination to bring them both safely through to the end.

It only takes a few firm strokes to get him hard again; he whines through his nose, forehead creased and eyes closed tight, and she strokes his cheek with her free hand to get him to open them again. They’re a beautiful liability. They show everything: fear and loneliness and regret, and she has the power to wipe it all away, at least for a little while. She positions herself over him, him with her hand, and then sinks down on him, enveloping him, taking him inside where it’s warm.

Bruce winces with the sweetness of it, seems to vanish into some inner space, hands stroking her arms vaguely. Natasha feels a tightness in her neck relax and realizes that she’d held back a little bit of fear for this moment, some old fairy tale superstition about purity and beasts, or maybe just Bruce’s mordant expectation of bad luck rubbing off on her. But right now, they’re just two human bodies, doing what bodies enjoy, and Natasha lets her spine curve into it as she tightens her internal muscles.

“Oh, God,” he whispers, lifting his knees a little to get more contact, filling his hands with her breasts and then turning his head away as if he’s ashamed of his greed. She bends down and catches his mouth in a kiss. She likes his kisses; they’re soft and discreet, not presuming too much, like his hands that run down her back and sides, like his cock, pressing but not thrusting.

When she comes it’s almost a surprise, a deep, sudden spasm that has her clenching tight. She cries out a little because there’s no one to hear and because she thinks Bruce will like it, and punctuates it by hitting him in the shoulder, lightly, with her balled-up fist.

He grips her hips and begins to push in earnest, with a little loss of control that doesn’t scare her--it’s almost an inoculation, and Natasha’s giddy post-coital brain imagines suggesting to Bruce that what he really needs to do to keep the beast at bay is get laid more often.

Bruce’s face is sweetly vulnerable when he comes; his lips part and his face stills, and she can see the pleasure on it, the relief. There aren’t many things in life that can give that: sex and forgiveness are two, and she’s only just starting to trust forgiveness. She lets herself collapse onto his chest, listens to the thud of his heartbeat, daydreams about his denatured come inside of her, and wonders what monsters they could breed if he were able.

After a little while, Bruce starts to stroke her hair, and she takes the hint and shifts off him, decoupling with some reluctance, especially when the sterile cold of the lab hits her again.

“Blanket,” he says, pointing to a storage cube, and she smirks at his limited verbal ability even as she turns her ass toward him and fetches it. She really ought to start gathering up her clothes; there are realities to consider, not least of them that there are security videos that need to be erased and DNA to be disposed of. She’s never been told officially to keep her hands off her fellow Avengers, but the group dynamic is delicate, and she wouldn’t put it past Tony to feel jealous or betrayed by one or both of them. And as for Clint--

But she ends up wedged warm and tight between the sofa back and Bruce, blanket spread across them both, head on Bruce’s chest, lulled by the rise and fall of his chest and the steady thud of his heart.

“So that’s your way of talking it out,” he says. “I like it. I like it very much, but I won’t presume anything because of it. I won’t even mention it when we’re alone, if you don’t want me to.”

“I don’t mind at all. It wasn’t a mistake.” He presses his lips against her hair, but she’s troubled. “Do you feel like it was? Were you trying to stay faithful to--” Her, Natasha almost says, because she’s sure at this point it was a her. “To someone?”

“No,” he says, and she’s can almost hear the lump in his throat. “No,” more firmly. “I can’t afford to think that way. As if there’s some commitment, some way I could hold on to a bit of the past.” He pauses. “Something that might happen in the future.”

Natasha tries to imagine the woman Bruce could love, to speculate about whether she would have left Bruce, or if Bruce would have left her for her own safety, but then decides Bruce would feel the same way regardless. She thinks about the rigorous personal honor, the discipline required to live your life as if you’ve forgotten someone when that’s clearly impossible. Natasha herself is terrible at forgetting, at disengaging; she can assume new personnas, but she can’t rid herself of her multiplicity of lives. But she can also learn to make peace with them; maybe learn it from Bruce, who knows a few things about that kind of cohabitation. At least she can forgive the Natasha who was afraid of dying in the hold of the helicarrier, at the hands of a beast, the same hands that are combing through her hair, gently pulling out the tangles.

“Doors close, doors open,” she says, stretching as much as she can in the confined space. “Sorry, I’m not much of a philosopher, especially when I’m sleepy.”

“All I know is that door better not open,” Bruce says, nodding toward the locked entry to the lab. “You sure you want to fall asleep here? I know of at least one empty king-sized bed in this place.”

“Here is just great,” she says, shifting more of her weight onto Bruce and less onto his arm, which he’s probably too polite to admit is falling asleep. “It’s perfectly safe.” She turns her head enough to catch the corner of a smile. He knows all the levels on which she means it; probably even believes it on all of them, too.

It’s a good afternoon’s work. And after a nap--and maybe a cup of coffee--she’ll be ready for her next project, which will be convincing Bruce to stay in New York. Because if people are starting to need her, she might as well need them back.

All that is now, all that is gone (Avengers, Tony&Bruce, R) Master Post

2012-07-07T16:23:00Z

Summary: When the Hulk seriously injures Tony during a mission, Tony must decide whether he can trust the Hulk again--or Bruce.

Length: 26K

Contains: Tony & Bruce angsty friendship; violence and language; other Avengers and Marvel Movieverse characters including Nick Fury, Pepper Potts, Natasha Romanoff, "Rhodey" Rhodes, and the Avengers as a team.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | On A03

Beautiful fanart for Chapter 4 created by stargazer_7

Grateful thanks to emluv for outstanding beta-reading and for easing my conscience by pointing out that Avengers is like Nicorette for Trek fans (think about it). Sincere thanks also to merisunshine36 for keeping me honest with characterization in the Marvel universe but signing off on all the "comic-book science." This story originally appeared on the Avengers kink meme, and I appreciate the support from all the commenters there, most especially stargazer_7.

All that is now, all that is gone (Avengers, Tony&Bruce, R), Part 4

2012-07-07T15:48:43Z

<< Part 3

“I thought the HYDRA M.O. seemed a little too good to be true.”

Nick Fury is taking Tony’s confession surprisingly well, perhaps helped down by the vodka martini in his hand, the last pink rays of a sweet May evening glinting off the arches of the Chrysler building. Tony’s glad now that he didn’t take Natasha up on her offer to “go to the principal’s office” with him, especially since after she’d said it, he’d been unable to stop thinking about her with teased hair, ripped jeans and a cigarette.

“I would have come to you first,” Tony says, “but until I talked to Bruce, I didn’t know how far down it went. Or up.” Tony tries to work a little apology into his tone, since he’s basically admitting that he thought Nick was capable of keeping Bruce locked up as his personal circus animal.

“No, I get it,” Nick says. “I don’t know if Banner mentioned it, but I encouraged him to go along with the nice doctors. He was seriously messed up after what happened to you. They were talking about leaving him on that ice floe down south, building some corral for him at Nellis. This way seemed more humane--keeping it in the family, as it were.”

Tony’s touched, because it is isn’t Nick’s business to care about them individually beyond what operational necessity requires.

“I could pretend to be shocked to find a conspiracy right under my nose, but the fact is that these ambitious sons of bitches breed like cockroaches,” Nick continues. “What I really need are a quarter of the staff and a lot more independence, but the Council will give me that when the moon’s green.” He runs a hand down the long thigh of his black jeans, considering. In the jeans and a gunmetal gray shirt he doesn’t exactly look approachable, but it’s a reminder to Tony that Fury wears a costume, too. “There are guys in the sub-basement who’ve had the same offices since the Cold War, but this kid Park--” Tony knows his name from the files he wasn’t supposed to see “--he’s young, and he’s trying to take the elevator straight up.”

“To the Director’s office, you mean?” Tony feels a strong desire to cut the cable on Assistant Director Park’s car. He was the one who’d taken Project Catalyst out of some file drawer and given it enough of a scientific veneer to appeal to a bunch of people who ought to have known better. “I suppose there’s no point mentioning that Bruce is a human being who’s entitled to decide whether he wants to be kept on a leash by some asshole bureaucrat.”

“Present company excepted, you mean,” Nick says with what Tony hopes is a smile. “Unfortunately it’s standard for human rights to go out the window when people are scared. The Atomic Age, the Age of Terror, and now the Age of Monsters--we went a little crazy each time, but each time we got back on track. This time I’m not so sure. Hostile aliens, genetically engineered monstrosities--the things under the bed, the things from nightmares are coming to life. That’s why people need the Avengers. They need to know that our guys are as strong as the bad guys, but that our guys are good, and that makes them better. Leave aside what it would do to Banner, turning the Hulk into just another monster is the wrong approach. The Hulk has to be a hero.”

“Bruce is a hero,” Tony says. “Even if you can’t buy his action figure at F.A.O. Schwarz.”

“You know what people like even better than heroes? Sure things. That’s what Park and his gang are offering, and that’s why we have to discredit them.”

“We?” Tony says, his hopes lifting a little with the warm spring night. “Are you serious? Because if you are, I have a proposal for you.”

“It scares me when a billionaire tries to sell me something.” Nick eats the olive from the bottom of the martini and taps the empty toothpick against his glass. “I’m going to need another drink.”
+++++

It’s a little more than two weeks later when they get the call, an undramatic text from Fury asking if they could please get their asses to HQ pretty damn quick. Tony’s in Malibu, Pepper is in Taiwan, and the molecular finish on the Mark VIII is barely dry, but there’s monster trouble in the Mediterranean, so everything else will have to wait. Tony delivers his customary exit line to his executive team (“Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, I have to go save the world”) and within a few hours he and the suit are being loaded onto SHIELD’s tricked-out Boeing Globemaster along with the other Avengers.

“I heard the creature is a minotaur,” Steve says, like he’s anticipating a 16-ounce steak. “That’s right up your alley, Thor.”

“This is a mythological creature? Not all of your Earth gods know each other, you know.” Thor leans forward and lowers his voice to confidential whisper. “I suspect some of them aren’t even real.”

The crew is in the last stages of loading people and weapons and crappy self-heating meals when Clint, seated in the jump next to him, nudges Tony.

“Hey,” he says, pointing out the airplane’s open tail section. “Look who.”

It takes another few moments for Tony to pick out Bruce’s silhouette, a blue button-down shirt in a sea of camo.

He’s not alone, of course. He boards the plane with what looks like an honor guard but is probably just a plain-old guard flanking him: in the front, Dr. Medina and a baby-faced man in a dark suit, and behind, four SHIELD square heads in black leather. Tony’s first reaction is surprise, because although he’d expected--hoped--that they’d let Bruce come to the party, he’d thought they’d probably transport him separately, in something more rage-proof than a flimsy aluminum tube. His second thought is more of a general oh, shit at the thought that if Bruce hadn’t been able to do what Tony had advised him to do, then they were all going to be parachuting out of this plane lot sooner than planned.

“He’s wearing some kind of medical device,” Clint says. Tony squints and can see a black rectangle hanging over Bruce’s right hip, a couple of wires and tubes snaking under his cuff.

The Avengers register this with indignation, hidden or not according to their abilities. They all know what Nick and Tony have planned, but the effect of seeing Bruce marched in like a prisoner makes Thor grip his hammer, Steve frown and pop a few veins, and Natasha hum a pop tune while digging her nails into Clint’s arm.

Fury strides into view and stops the boarding party before it can go any further.

“Mr. Park,” he says, looking down at the baby-faced suit. “Do you want to tell me why you think this is a good idea? Because this is not looking like a good idea.”

“Of course, Director,” Park says, in an eager, nasal tenor that kicks Tony’s dislike up ten points. “As I indicated in my memo, we can demonstrate that Banner--”

“Dr. Banner,” Fury says.

“That Dr. Banner is completely under control and no danger to this aircraft or this operation. I thought a demonstration would be reassuring to other personnel,” he says, nodding in the direction of the Avengers, who don’t nod back.

“All right,” Fury says. He’s wearing his standard scowl, but Park takes that as enough of an endorsement to pull a large control box out of his briefcase and begin fumbling with it.

“If I could have your attention please,” he calls out, whiny voice fighting with the engines revving.

“Over here, now!” Fury calls, and a minute later there’s a small crowd gathered around.

“For those of you who don’t already know, this is Bruce Banner,” Park says, “otherwise known as the creature called the Hulk. Mr. Banner--”

“Dr. Banner,” Natasha says.

“Yes, thank you, Dr. Banner.” Park pauses to adjust his glasses and regain his momentum. “We’ve developed a technique to allow us to summon the Hulk as needed, but also to prevent Dr. Banner from transitioning in an untimely manner. We’re going to demonstrate now. Are you ready, Dr. Medina?”

Tony’s been avoiding Bruce’s eyes because he’s afraid of what he might give away. It’s okay to look now, because Bruce’s attention is on Dr. Medina and everyone else’s is on Bruce. Tony has seen Bruce in the helpless moments before transformation, a shockingly intimate thing--fear and reluctant surrender, anticipatory regret. But he’s also seen Bruce around bad guys, people who had no idea what the Hulk was capable of or thought that it might be fun or profitable to provoke him into action. Bruce has that look on his face now, the look of someone watching two equally stupid drivers about to run into each other. Anyone else might feel humiliated by the scrutiny, at his helplessness at the hands of some idiot bureaucrat about to dump who knows what kind of electricity or chemicals into his body. Bruce just looks like a bystander at the birthing of a very bad idea.

“First,” Park says, turning a dial, “we can raise the stress hormone levels in Dr. Banner’s bloodstream. This will make him more receptive to the actuator, which will only be applied in a ‘live fire’ situation.” Bruce twitches, just slightly, and Tony can see some kind of liquid start to move through the tube.

There’s an uncomfortable silence as everyone stares at Bruce, tense with anticipation, waiting to see whether he’s going to Hulk out or pass out first. Sweat breaks out on Bruce’s forehead and he begins to tremble, breath shallow and fast. It’s more horrible than Tony imagined, more so because he knows that the whole scheme is not a reaction to fear but a desire to own Bruce and the being inside him, a kind of naked exploitation that’s so far from science that Dr. Medina has good reason to look embarrassed.

It’s like watching a thunderstorm rolling in across a bay. As his shaking intensifies, Bruce’s pupils turn dark and his hands clench into fists.

“Now,” Bruce says to Park, voice becoming guttural, monosyllabic. “Now would be good.”

“Not quite yet, Dr. Banner.” Park’s face has gone a little pink, whether with satisfaction or fear, Tony has no idea. “I want to demonstrate that we can control the transition even once it’s underway.”

“How?” Natasha asks.

She’s got her professional face on, bland and beautiful, but Tony knows she’s probably imagining the things she’d like to do to Park. She’s more creative in that department than Tony.

“A low-voltage electric shock,” Park says. “Administered directly to the hypothalamus.”

At that moment, the sound of ripping fabric seems to echo off the metal walls of the plane like thunder. A couple of the tough-looking agents flinch and reach for their sidearms.

Park jams a button on his console with sudden and sensible urgency. Bruce goes rigid, eyes rolling back, and lets out a faint cry of pain. Out of the corner of his eye, Tony can see Steve doing his best to restrain Thor, who clearly feels a hammering coming on.

Park and the doctor hold onto Bruce’s arms as he sinks to his knees, shaking the shock off like you would a taser hit but still weak from adrenaline, the aborted transformation, or just the horror of having the intimate details of his physiology pimped out in front of a crowd of uniformed strangers. Tony had been thinking in terms of Bruce being treated like an animal but now it seems more that they’re treating him like a child, someone who can’t be trusted with agency over his own body.

“Tell me this ends soon,” Clint says in a rough whisper behind Tony. “Or there may just be some projectiles flying around here.”

“Soon,” Tony agrees, though in truth he can’t promise anything. It’s all on Bruce, who doesn’t seem to have control of his biological systems, let alone his destiny.

The crowd begins to wander off, reassured or ashamed. Bruce, still on his knees, raises his head slowly and looks right at Tony, as if he’s known all along that Tony was watching him. He may be trying to communicate something, but Tony doesn’t register much beyond the fact that there are tears in his eyes.

+++++

Except for the mild suspense of wondering whether Bruce will Hulk out and kill them all, the flight is horribly boring. Tony misses the full-sized bed and massaging shower from his Gulfstream but knows it would be tacky to say so. Steve, in his element, is teaching Thor how to play stud poker; Natasha and Clint have fallen asleep, hands touching quite accidentally. Bruce is asleep, too, though it doesn’t look restful; he’s handcuffed to his seat and the tug at his wrist keeps waking him up as he tries in vain to find a comfortable position.

When the loathsome A.D. Park goes to bend Fury’s ear about something, Tony sees Dr. Medina rise from her seat next to Bruce and head his way. Tony closes his eyes, still too pissed to want to give her any encouragement.

“Mr. Stark?” Her voice is soft and anxious in his ear.

“Oh, hi,” he says. “Dr. Medina, right? I assume it’s still Dr. Medina, unless the AMA has found out what you’ve been up to and pulled your license.”

“I want you to know I had nothing to do with any of this.” She gestures to the “this” involving Bruce wired up and in handcuffs tethered electrically to the world’s most assholish bureaucrat. “I only came along because I wanted Bruce to have a medical doctor in attendance.”

“It’s ‘Bruce’ now, is it? Good thing he has you to rely on and not his actual friends.” Tony enjoys the way Medina’s brow furrows with annoyance.

“The epinephrine pump and the electroshock--that’s from a completely different project,” she says. “Park showed up a couple of weeks ago. He said another lab had come up with a way to stop Dr. Banner from transforming at the wrong time. And since I’d found how to trigger the transformation, those two things could be combined to make the Hulk completely predictable and reliable.”

“Because asking never works with Bruce.”

“Because, I suspect, Dr. Banner wouldn’t participate in the kinds of missions Park wants to use him for.”

“I suspect you’re right,” Tony says, parroting back Medina cautious, academic tone. “And now you get all conscience-y all of a sudden because you realize the quasi-military top-secret global organization you work for is conducting weapons research. You know what I do with people like that at my company? I tell them they should have thought of that before, and then I fire them. Of course, I’m not in the business of kidnapping and torturing people, so there’s a lot less dissatisfaction.”

“I’m a contractor, Mr. Stark, not a SHIELD employee,” Medina says tightly. “I agreed to work on the project because it was a once-in-a-lifetime research opportunity, I won’t deny that. But after I spent some time with Dr. Banner, I found that he was--” She hesitates, maybe because she’s about to reveal the extent of her lack of scientific objectivity.

“He’s nice, isn’t he? Nice and funny and smart. He likes spicy food and bad sci fi movies. Almost like a real human being. “

“I’m not here to apologize or justify myself to you,” she says with much more firmness. “We were making progress. We were getting closer to figuring out what triggers involuntary changes. What I showed Park was a step in that direction, but it’s not as crude or as predictable as Park’s telling everyone it is. So I wanted you to know, for your own protection. If they try to use the drugs and the trigger at the same time--there’s no way of knowing what could happen. That’s what I needed you to know.”

“I’d kind of guessed this was headed for flaming disaster,” Tony says, giving up any hope of sleeping on the flight. “That’s twice you’ve offered me vague, doom-y innuendos at no risk to yourself. So thanks for that.”

Tony folds his arms and closes his eyes as a way to signal to the doctor that he has important worrying to do, but he doesn’t hear her walk away.

“There’s something else,” she says. “He wanted me to give you a message.”

Tony cracks open an eye. “Yeah?”

“He says, ‘Everything is under control.’”

Tony considers for a moment asking Medina if she knows Bruce well enough to know when he’s being sarcastic.

+++++

Tony must have fallen asleep after all, because when he snorts himself awake, there’s a general buzz of activity and one of the staffers hands him a meal. At least, it’s packaged like a meal, but it’s worse than anything Tony has put in his mouth since college. While he considers whether to eat a bite of “Fiesta Chicken” or use his fork to catapult it at A.D. Park, Steve (who scarfed down three of the “meals” in the time it took Tony to unpack his) comes over to sit next to him.

“Can you believe this?” Tony says. “Animal crackers? Who saves the world on fucking animal crackers?”

“I saw that lady doctor talking to you,” Steve says, then lowers his voice. “Is she in on the plan?”

“What plan?”

“That’s what I want to know. Tony, you said we should all back off and not interfere with Bruce because that was the only way he was going to get out of this--situation.” After all this time, Steve still has trouble saying curse words. “Which is great, because I was pretty much ready to pop someone’s head off after that performance with the electric shocks. I want to help Bruce, but not at the cost of the mission, or if it endangers anyone else. I need to know what’s going on.”

“Okay,” Tony says, trying not to spit cracker crumbs. “Okay, that’s fair. So here’s the deal: the ‘trigger’ they keep talking about is a video. Specifically, it’s video of me getting hurt by the ice monster, by way of the Hulk.” Steve gets that look of righteous-person horror. “I know, I know. So I got him a copy of the video, disguised as something else, so he could practice not transforming. That way, when A.D. Park turns on his little music box, he’s going to fail spectacularly.”

“So the plan is for Bruce not to turn into the Hulk?”

“Pretty much.”

“You don’t see the problem with this plan? When there’s a minotaur involved?”

“Oh, but he’ll still be able to transform when he’s good and ready.”

“And you know he can do this?” Steve presses. “Resist all those drugs and emotions and then Hulk out at exactly the right time?”

“Not really. I haven’t seen him in weeks. But come on, it’s Bruce. He wouldn’t have let it get to this point if he didn’t have everything under control.”

Steve looks to where Bruce sits handcuffed between two SHIELD agents, meal balanced on his knee, trying to eat with one hand. Tony has to admit that he doesn’t seem in control of very much right now.

The P.A. system crackles. “Attention. We’ve begun our descent to Sigonella Naval Air Station. Flight crew, begin preparation for landing.”

Tony knows better than to give Cap false assurances. “I promise you that at minimum, this isn’t any worse than it would have been with Park and his yahoos in charge. The more of Bruce there is in the Hulk, the better.”

“And you trust him after what happened in Antarctica?” Steve is using his Captain voice, hard-edged and bullshit-free.

Tony thinks of all the ways he could answer that: that he trusts Bruce to do his best; that the Hulk is no more or less capable of making mistakes than the rest of them; that the Avengers are stronger with him than without him, always. But he settles for answering with the first thing that came into his mind.

“Yes.”

+++++

When they reach the airbase there’s a huge scramble of people and materiel, and then they load onto a ship for the two-hour voyage to the private island of the minotaur master. The way Fury explains it, the guy is almost certainly a narcotrafficker but also a close “friend” of a number of politicians and newspaper editors, so they have to be careful with how they approach this high-monster-probability situation. The reports they’ve been getting from the island--cattle disappearing, weird bellowing at night, sightings of a massive man-beast--have been getting the oh-those-wacky-villagers treatment in the press. But combined with SHIELD’s intel about the global monster supply chain, it adds up to someone wanting to make a splash on the international bad guy scene.

Tony dozes, jet lagged and dry mouthed, and wakes up to the first blush of sunrise over an azure sea. He daydreams about a yacht and Pepper.

“Here’s how it’s going to go,” Fury says. “We’re going to land you on the south side of the island, closest to our friend’s compound. You’re going to be given flares and animal carcasses and various things that should attract the creature’s attention, if you don’t on your own. We have a three-stage line of defense: Thor and Stark will keep the creature busy while Barton hits it with tranquilizers. If that doesn’t work, we’ll send in the Hulk.” There’s a pause while everybody throws a doubtful side glance at Bruce.

“Sure,” Bruce says after a moment. “That’ll work.”

“The objective is to capture the creature, not kill it. Once we get confirmation that the creature exists and is hostile, we’ll establish a beachhead and authorize Romanoff and Rogers to capture our guy, also alive. If the creature starts moving toward the village, I will authorize you to use lethal force, provided you get authorization from me. Any questions?”

“Do we have to use animal carcasses?” Tony asks. “That’s disgusting.”

“Let’s suit up,” Steve says, ignoring him. Fortunately for them both, it’s the invitation-slash-order Tony has been waiting weeks to hear.

The Mark VIII, like every suit before it, is pretty much the greatest thing that Tony’s ever imagined. He doesn’t preclude the possibility that maybe he’ll think of something even more incredible in the future, but for now it represents the pinnacle of human achievement ass-kicking-wise, so hell yeah, he suits up where everyone can see him. Making the Mark VIII transportable was worth all the insane three-dimensional geometry just so the SHIELD boys can look on his mighty boner-inducing work and despair.

They stand on the bow of the ship in the misty golden half-light of a Mediterranean morning. It’s the first time in months all the Avengers have been together, and each time it happens Tony feels humbled, or at least as humbled as Tony’s capable of feeling. It’s an honor and a privilege and a huge fucking rush to work with them, and his heart is beating 14 bpm above baseline, according to his visual display.

The uncomplicated joy of getting ready to kick ass lasts until Bruce appears, flanked by two of the square heads. He’s in one of those institutional shirt-and-pants combos, looking grayer than usual, too thin and too stubbly, and the minor discourtesy of not letting Bruce attend to basic grooming makes Tony as angry as much as the more obvious mistreatment.

“Hey,” Tony says, pointing a finger at each of the square heads. “You’re not in the Avengers. Who said you could come?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, moving to flank him, all pecs and intimidation. “Fury said we were going in alone for jurisdictional reasons. You guys know something we don’t? Or don’t you take orders from the Director?”

The square heads scowl, exchange shrugs, and disappear with Bruce back into the cabin.

“We’re not leaving without Bruce,” Steve says. “I assume nobody’s got a problem with that.”

Everybody nods and murmurs and Tony feels a little eye-sting of gratitude, especially since they said “Bruce” and not “The Hulk.”

After a few minutes Bruce returns, alone. He’s still wearing the medical pack on his hip, and he’s wearing glasses--not his wire-rimmed, professorial ones, but something chunky and thick-rimmed.

“I suspect these glasses have some hidden purpose,” Thor says.

“You suspect right,” Bruce says. “They’re only going to let me play if I stay on the leash.”

Thor looks puzzled, but everyone else looks appropriately pissed off.

“Okay,” Steve says. “If that’s the way we have to play it, that’s how we’ll play it. Whatever it takes, Bruce.”

“Thanks,” Bruce says, and Steve gives him a thump on the shoulder that should knock him over, but instead makes him grin.

“Let’s go kick some minotaur behind,” Steve says, and jumps over the edge of the boat. Luckily, there’s a smaller landing craft waiting below.

Tony and Thor reach the shore under their own power, Tony cooling the afterburners so as not to startle the sheep.

Tony has to admit that the bad guy has good taste. Green fields slope toward the steep, rocky coastline, and in the distance Tony can see a towering, white washed villa, pointy cypress trees guarding it like soldiers.

“This is a beautiful place,” Bruce says, peering over the cliff edge to the ink-blue water below. “I wouldn’t mind living here, if I were a monster.”

“It seems like they treat their monsters better here,” Natasha says. “If you were a monster, maybe you’d be handing them a resume.”

There are a million things Tony wants to add to that, but they’re all mic’d up, so for once in his life he keeps his trap shut and watches Steve unpack the monster-attracting kit.

“What, no nylons or chewing gum?” Steve says nothing but tosses what appears to be a squirrel carcass at Tony’s feet.

As it turns out, there’s no special equipment needed. A bellow rings out through the soft morning air. It sounds like a bullhorn being murdered by a troop of macaques. A moment later a second bellow joins the first in a horrible duet. Then a third. Then a fourth.

“I’m a city girl,” Natasha says. “Somebody want to tell me those are sheep?”

“Nope,” Clint says, as a couple of brown blobs crest over the hillside. “Not unless the sheep here walk upright.”

Clint draws an arrow, Thor hefts Mjolnir, and a few seconds later the beasts lumber into view. They’re at least nine feet tall with huge, horned heads, man-like but covered with shaggy, dark fur. Like the yeti, they look half-formed, like somebody sketched a rough outline but forgot to fill in the details. The long, pointy horns are plenty well defined, though. Tony silently addresses the nanites surrounding him: I hope you guys can handle some piercing.

“Well, shit,” Steve says. There’s a chirp as he engages his comm. “You seeing this, Director? I’ve got a new plan of attack. If we lure the creatures to the cliff edge here, we might be able to throw some of them over it. If they’re too strong for us, we can still escape that way. All we have to do is make it to the boat.”

“That works,” Fury says. “Survival first, but keep one of the creatures alive if you can, you copy? And if you can’t stop them and they make a move toward the village, we’re sending in gunships.”

“Roger that,” Steve says. “One more thing: we’re definitely going to need the Hulk.”

“Banner?” Fury says. “You ready to go?”

“Sure, any time someone wants to start my engine.”

“Affirmative. A.D. Park is starting the process now.”

“This is such bullshit,” Clint says, apparently not caring about the comm link. “Bruce never had any trouble transforming before when we needed him. Fucking bureaucrats just want to take credit for it.”

Fortunately for the team, the minotaurs are lumbering creatures, wobbling along on hoof-like feet that seem too small for their huge mass. With the help of his onboard cameras, Tony can watch both the creatures’ approach and Bruce, who’s beginning to tremble as the drugs take effect.

“Tony, Thor--” Steve says. “I’m going to need you to fly over the creatures and take a couple of shots at them so we get an idea of how powerful they are.”

“Sure thing.” Tony doesn’t have to be asked twice. He’s got more power than he knows what to do with and an apparent talent for annoying monsters.

“Wait,” Steve says. “Hold up. Let’s get the Hulk into position first.”

“You sure you want to do that?” Bruce’s voice sounds raw and strained; Tony figures it’s from the meds. “Once the genie’s out of the bottle you’re not going to be able to put him back in.”

“I’ve always found the Hulk to be most cooperative in battle,” Thor says. Tony wants to agree, but watching how Bruce is shaking, how the veins are standing out in his neck even while he’s still all Bruce, Tony wonders if a turbocharged Hulk is such a good idea.

“Initiating the trigger,” Park says over the comm, voice high-pitched with excitement.

Tony sees the way Steve is looking at Bruce and it’s only then that he thinks about what the trigger is. In the middle of this fresh attack, Bruce is being forced to watch the last one, the one that ended with blood on the snow. Everything is different now; it’s a blue, cloudless morning and the air smells like salt and flowers. But Bruce is trapped in a memory, at the chemical mercy of people who don’t understand that what’s going on in his brain is far more complex than any lever they can pull. Tony’s been trying for weeks to push the other way, thinking of it as an engineering problem, and now he’s realizing that it has very little to do with Bruce’s good intentions or hard work or willingness to suffer. Their lives may depend on Bruce’s ability to forgive himself.

For the first time that morning, Tony is scared.

For a long moment, everybody looks at Bruce, trying to ignore the bellowing of the quickly closing minotaurs but also ready to clear the hell out if he blows.

“What’s happening, Park?” Fury’s anger comes through clearly over the comm. “You said it would take 10 seconds.”

“I don’t know-- I thought-- Give me a few more minutes. Maybe more drugs-- Or if Dr. Medina--”

“Stark, Thor, go in now,” Steve barks. “Buy us some time.”

Tony blasts off, wishing he could stay to watch A.D. Park go down in flames, but the minotaurs are within spitting distance. He starts with some warm-up repulsor bolts directed at the ugly heads of the creatures. They flail with their human-like hands and toss their horns, but it doesn’t have much effect. He tries again with the chest RT, and this time they stagger back a bit, but still no K.O.

Thor, meanwhile, is cooking up a mini weather system, mostly in tornado form because the clear blue sky doesn’t have the ingredients for lightning or rain. He hurls Mjolnir again and again, clonking the creatures on the chest and head. Tony sees a black-fletched arrow whizz by and knows that Clint has joined the party.

“The creatures have thick hides,” Thor says on the comm. “I fear it may take us a long time to subdue them.”

“Last chance, Park.” Fury snarls. There’s nothing but silence from the idiot end of the comm.

On his display, Tony can see Bruce, head down and fists clenched, tense and sweating, but still fully human.

“Uh oh,” Clint says. “We’ve got tourists.”

Tony sees dark shapes silhouetted at the crest of the hill and zooms higher to get a better view. Sure enough, there are a dozen or so locals, cell phones out, taking in the best blockbuster they’re going to see all summer.

“Get the creatures moving,” Steve says. “Toward the south cliff face. I’m going to tell those civilians to back off.”

Tony can see where Natasha is setting up some kind of tripwire--a neat old trick that the minotaurs will probably fall for. The problem is, the minotaurs don’t want to move. Their resistant hides are taking all the Avengers can dish out, and it’s making them angrier. Their flailing has more purpose now; Tony moves for a close-range blast and one of the needle-sharp horns almost pricks him. He does not want to find out what sort of nasties are loaded on the tip.

“Okay, but we’re going to need help,” Tony says.

“Banner, you’re authorized to remove the medical equipment. Do whatever you have to do,” Fury says.

Tony has to stop himself from cheering as Bruce yanks off the glasses, pulls the needles out of his arm, and throws the black box on the ground. He pauses a moment in his attack to enjoy a green and glorious Hulk out.

It doesn’t happen.

“Bruce?” he says, as Bruce passes a hand over his forehead. “You okay?”

“Can’t do it,” he whispers. “I can’t transform.”

“You can’t--” Tony leaves the minotaurs to Clint and Thor for a moment so he can concentrate. “Bruce, everything’s fine. Look, the townspeople are moving away.” The townspeople are actually taking photos of the American superhero in the very tight uniform trying to shoo them away, but no matter. “It’s just us and the monsters, buddy. Come on.”

“No, I mean I really can’t.” Bruce is kneeling now, elbows on thighs and forearms wrapped around his middle, as if he’s in pain.

Steve has used one of his flares to get the townspeople to step off, so Tony calls down to him. “Hey, Cap! Can you hold things down for a minute?”

“You bet,” Steve says, running in shield-first.

Tony zips over to where Bruce is kneeling, still at the landing site, the monsters’ backs to him. Tony kneels beside him as well as he can in the suit and takes off his helmet so they can’t be overheard.

“What is it?” he asks quietly. “Is it the drugs?” He’d like to touch Bruce’s shoulder or rub his neck, but he doubts a nanocarbonite gauntlet is going to be all that comforting.

“No,” Bruce says, head down. “I don’t think so, I just--I spent so long practicing not transforming, I think I have--” He stops, and still won’t look at Tony.

“Some kind of mental block? Or maybe--is this like performance anxiety? I mean the stage fright kind, not the other kind. Although, when you think about it--”

“I don’t know,” Bruce says, desperate. “This is horrible, letting you all down, after everything you’ve done--”

Tony realizes then that if Bruce fails to perform, they’re not only slightly fucked from the monster perspective, but there’s a bigger and worse problem. Because if the Avengers win the battle without Bruce, he’ll apologize and congratulate everyone else, but if anyone gets hurt, he won’t get over it, ever. And ever for the Hulk is a very long time.

It’s not easy to think straight amid the bellowing and thunder. Natasha has finished setting up her snare and is now using good ol’ fashioned firepower to drive the minotaurs closer to the cliff, but they’re fighting back with more precision now, as if they’re learning about their enemies as they go along. Clint’s given up on the tranquilizer arrows and is using the exploding kind instead, well enough that he’s brought one of the creatures to its knees by finding its Achilles hoof. It’s not impossible for them to do this without the Hulk, although the longer the battle goes on, the greater the risk that the minotaurs will figure out a way to turn the tide.

And then there’s Bruce, slumped in defeat, panting through his open mouth because his heart is probably going 200 beats per minute, the chemicals in his body saying yes but his brain saying no, that overachieving brain that’s he’s been training so hard to resist the urge to give in to despair. It would be ironic if he’d finally figured out a way to suppress the Hulk at the very moment his own life and the lives of others depend on it. Tony knows there’s a reason he’s always hated irony.

“Do you think maybe you’re cured?” Tony asks.

“Don’t think so,” Bruce says with a twisted smile. “The other guy’s still there. I just don’t know what to do to coax him out.” He raises his eyes long enough to glance at the battle. Between the bright sunshine and the drugs, his pupils are practically pinholes. “You’d think a bunch of screaming monsters would be enough.”

The sensible thing would be to tell Cap what’s up so he can tell Bruce to go back to the ship, where A.D. Park and his band of idiots will no doubt be waiting to explain how their little mistake can be corrected with a few more drugs and a few more months of captivity. Or Bruce can wait out the battle and escape somewhere with Thor afterward, to some nice planet with sun and sand and no possibility of ever coming home.

Those would be sensible things to do, and Tony lets himself savor them for a moment with sweet, nostalgic regret. Tony has no intention of doing the sensible thing; he’s going to do the right thing, because problem solving is his curse as surely as a big, green monster is Bruce’s. It’s like that moment in New York when the missile was heading for them and Tony realized I’m a missile, too.

He gives himself a few seconds to think of everything he loves about life--Pepper, the suit, his work, his toys--and then he runs toward the battle, helmet still off, right up to the angriest and least-injured of the minotaurs and gives him a full-on chest blast.

A lot of things happen at once: Bruce, Thor and Steve all yell at him, variations of What the hell are you doing? The monster gives an enraged yodel and wheels clumsily around. Natasha and Clint have to hold their fire because the minotaur lists from side to side as it turns, leaving Tony exposed.

“Oh, God,” Bruce chokes. “Don’t do this. Please.” Tony doesn’t have to turn his head to know that Bruce is still on the ground, still human.

Tony expects the monster to crack his unprotected head like a walnut, but instead it rears back, tilts its horns down, and takes aim straight at Tony’s heart. Tony can see the tips of its horns glinting with something metallic, and has no doubt that it’s all for him, the most famous and most obnoxious of the Avengers, the one any rich bad guy in the world would like to stuff and mount on his wall.

“Tony! Are you hurt?” Steve calls. “Do you need us to pull you out?”

He can get away on his own, of course. All he has to do is blast off; in seconds he can be hundreds of meters above the fray.

Instead he stands his ground and tries not to think of all the ifs: if Bruce can still transform, if the sight of Tony about to be gored will spur him to action or shock him into inertia; if Tony’s going to doom them both with his act of desperate hope.

Holding still is the hardest thing he’s ever done in his life, harder than having a cold gun barrel pressed to his temple. He can see the creature’s enormous forehead, its dripping snout, its black marble eyes. It smells like the old buffalo hide blanket in his father’s den. A sweet memory comes over him, and he almost gives in to the temptation to close his eyes.

Just before the tip of the minotaur’s horn closes in something hits him, hard, and shoves him out of the way. For a soaring moment he thinks it’s the Hulk, but then he sees that it’s Bruce, nobody but Bruce, and in the time it takes Tony to transfer his fear from his own impending death to Bruce’s, the tip of the beast’s horn touches Bruce’s chest.

Tony has seen Bruce transform before, been pierced to the heart by that last, desperate look before the loss of control, but that’s not what he sees now. When Bruce’s eyes meet his, all he can see is the purest and most grateful relief. Then Bruce’s eyes flutter closed and his features relax, just for a second, before twisting again in pain.

There’s a spurt of blood, a cry cut short, and then only green as Bruce expands, enlarges, transfigures into what he’s always been.

The Hulk literally grabs the bull by the horns and gives a vicious wrench. The creature thrashes briefly and then falls heavily to the ground, neck broken.

“That was well timed!” Thor says, hoisting Mjolnir for another blow.

Tony, too happy and surprised to stay focused, doesn’t see the minotaur kick out its leg as it shifts to dodge the hammer. The hairy leg sends Tony flying and he lands hard a few feet away, body insulated by the suit but neck rebounding hard enough to give him minor whiplash. The minotaur gives a nasty, gloating snort and Tony lets him have it with the repulsors, but as before, he doesn’t seem to do much but annoy it. He starts to struggle to his feet but then wonders if he’d be smarter to stay down with his suit-end pointing at the creature. While he muddles this over, the creature wastes no time in bending over him, stamping, ready to bring his boss his trophy.

“Hey!” Tony calls, still flat on his back like a capsized turtle. “Guys! I could use a little help here!”

The Hulk lifts his head, grunts, and looks at Tony with fierce attention. Tony wonders if he should have kept his mouth shut and taken his chances with the minotaur, but it’s too late now. Those brown eyes, so disturbingly like Bruce’s, dart back and forth between Tony and the minotaur, which is snorting out a prelude to killing him.

“Tony?” There’s fear in Natasha’s voice, which means things are very bad indeed.

“It’s fine,” he calls back. “Just--give us some space, okay?”

They all know how this movie turned out the last time, Bruce best of all, but Tony doesn’t know how much of Bruce is here. When the Hulk bares his teeth, flexes his muscles, and reaches out to destroy, all Tony can think is I must be really stupid to let this happen twice.

The Hulk’s massive hands land on the minotaur’s shoulders, and the beast tries to shake him off. But the Hulk isn’t someone who can be ignored; he can cold-cock a god, snap the neck of a mythological beast. He pulls the minotaur off balance, making it stumble backward.

What follows is the epic monster battle of Tony’s dreams, a snarling, staggering clash of pure, adulterated muscle between genetic monstrosities that should never have existed but shit, they’re amazing to look at. Tony’s having as much fun and feeling about as scared as when he and Pepper watch shark programs in 3D.

“Hey, Stark!” Clint yells. “You taking a nap, or what? Come on!” Tony pulls himself together and runs back to pick up his helmet like a kid getting an out-of-bounds ball.

With one minotaur down and one being Hulk-handled, it’s a lot easier to manage the other two; within minutes, Tony and Cap manage to get one to their knees thanks to the revelation that the creatures are top-heavy. Bad design, Tony thinks, and smirks under his helmet.

The Hulk roars and Tony lifts his head in time to see him punch his minotaur to the ground and then, vast muscles straining, lift it over his head. The beast struggles and bellows, and Tony thinks, Sucks to be you; we’ve got a Hulk. Tony expects the Hulk to spike it like a football, but instead he bends with his knees and hurls it, still complaining, over the side of the cliff.

They all stop for a moment to watch the shaggy beast sail over their heads; even Thor seems to be impressed. This is why they need the Hulk, not just for the pure, brutal power but for the intention behind it. The five-year-old in Tony appreciates the smash, but the fact is that the Hulk thinks and plans and works in his own way. Whether it’s Bruce’s mind that Tony detects--or thinks he detects--in there is beside the point. Tony has the suit, Thor has his hammer and Bruce has his Hulk, and if his mistakes are bigger it’s because everything about the Hulk is bigger, but they aren’t a team without him.

Clint figures out a way to finish off Tony and Cap’s minotaur by shooting into its gaping mouth, right up through the palate and into its brain. It convulses and then goes still and things get a lot quieter with only one minotaur left on the hoof.

“Send it this way,” Natasha calls, and Tony remembers the tripwire. Together, they herd the creature toward the cliff edge. It doesn’t go easily--a backhand sends Clint tumbling--but they distract it well enough that its beady eyes don’t see what its clumsy feet are doing until they’re tangled in the wire. It flails, trying to find its balance, the greatest YouTube video ever if it weren’t unbelievably top secret. As it pitches over the cliff, they all draw near to watch the splat and it’s then that Tony sees what Natasha spent so long setting up: a huge net designed to catch and enclose the monster.

“Super cool.” Tony says as he watches it thrash around. “How are they going to get it home?”

Natasha shrugs. “I don’t know. Not my problem.”

“We’ve got it covered,” Fury says over the comm. “A special vessel’s on its way. Romanoff, Captain--you’re cleared to go secure our target. Forces will meet you .5K north, toward the residence. Everyone else, we’ll see you at the landing site when you’re ready. Nice work, by the way. This arrest is gonna look good on CNN tonight.” Fury sounds positively smug. “One more thing--is the Hulk secure?”

Tony turns around, half expecting to see the Hulk roasting a minotaur on a spit, but there’s just Bruce, naked on the green grass, arms wrapped modestly around his knees.

“Tony, look in the bottom of my backpack,” Steve says as he and Natasha go through their pre-mission check again. “Tell Bruce he did a great job.”

Bruce looks like he’s doing fine, so Tony does as instructed and rifles in Steve’s pack. Under the monster goodies, he finds an athletic bag with Bruce’s name on it.

“Hey, Bruce,” he says. “Isn’t this the bag from your locker?”

“Oh, yeah,” Bruce says, zipping it open. Inside is a change of clothes--Bruce’s own clothes, a long-sleeved shirt, slacks, and loafers, perfectly wrong for the weather. “That was thoughtful,” he adds, but doesn’t rush to put them on. “I haven’t been in the sunshine in a couple of months. It feels good. It’ll be a shame to go back.”

That last sentence sets Tony’s teeth on edge, but he doesn’t want to rip into Bruce while he’s tired and groggy from the transformation.

“Yeah, this is a nice place. I’m thinking of buying a house here. That house,” Tony says, pointing to the bad guy’s mansion. “I bet it’s got nice stables. There’s no airport on the island, but that’s not a problem for Iron Man. It’s a great location, too, if I parked a yacht here I could--oh, for fuck’s sake, Bruce, tell me you’re not going back to that place.” Tony winces and snaps his jaw shut.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Bruce asks. Butt naked and with his chin resting on his knees he looks young and tentative, in spite of the grey hair and the lines on his face. “Has anything changed?”

“Are you kidding me? After everything that happened?”

“I don’t know what happened. I don’t remember, remember? I look around and I see a lot of dead bulls and live people, so I guess everything’s okay, but I don’t know.”

“It’s better than okay--you were amazing!” Tony can’t put the image in Bruce’s head, so he acts it out with his hands. “The first minotaur was about to attack me, and you snapped its neck with one twist. Then the second one, you picked it up over your head, and you threw it, and it was like groooonnnk, it was so pissed, and it landed, like, a hundred meters away, it was like the fucking minotaur Olympics. You saved my life, by the way, when it--”

“This time. So this time the other guy was helpful, but the next time--”

“Just don’t, okay?” Tony runs a hand over his forehead. With his visor up his climate control doesn’t work as well, and he’s getting hot and cranky. “I’m not the guy to argue hypotheticals with. I’m not the guy for ethics and philosophy. I’m the guy who knows what works and this works. We were getting nowhere before you transformed, and as soon as the Hulk arrived, everything fell into place. And it’s not just the Hulk, it’s you. You don’t just show up and bring him along. You’re in there, I swear you’re in there--the way the Hulk figures things out, the way he uses mass and energy and inertia, that’s a fucking physicist in there, Bruce. And even if you disagree, even if you still treat the other guy like your big, green cousin from the Bronx, you’re the one who makes it possible. You go through all the hell and you don’t get to have any of the fun, but you still do it because we need you.”

Bruce gives that pleasant, forced smile. “Not such a team player this time, was I? I didn’t transform until my own life was in danger.”

Tony wishes there were a minotaur left to punch. He wishes he could open Bruce’s head up and see what’s going on in there, why a smart man fights so hard against simple truths.

“Which it was because you were trying to save my life,” Tony says.

“Which I was because you did something incredibly stupid and really, really--” Bruce stops and presses his fingers to his eyes. “Really brave. I can’t believe you did that. Tony, it could have gone so wrong.”

“I know,” Tony says. “But it didn’t.”

Bruce actually laughs at that. “I’m not going to win this argument, am I?”

“Do you want to? Seems like it would be a Pyrrhic victory, man. You can bug out, or you can let A.D. Park keep on disgracing the good name of science. Or you could come home.”

“Home,” Bruce says, such a sweet, sad word. His voice sounds like he’s thinking about it, but his smile says he’s already decided. They lapse into silence, Bruce’s tired eyes resting on the deep blue water dotted with the green cones of volcanic islands, and for once Tony thinks he can do more good by keeping his trap shut.

Clint and Thor wander up from where they’ve been keeping a tactful distance, inspecting the minotaurs and not obviously eavesdropping.

“So what are we doing?” Clint says. “Don’t know about you guys, but I’d rather monitor the rest of the op from here, not the boat.”

“Good idea,” Tony says. “Also, I was thinking of lunch.” Tony flips down his visor and engages the satellite comm system. “JARVIS?”

“Ah, hello sir. I see you’re in the Mediterranean. How delightful..”

“Yeah, it’s great. JARVIS, can you find a restaurant that delivers to my current location?”

“Of course, sir. It seems there are several highly rated options available. What type of cuisine would you prefer?”

“Thor, do you like seafood?”

“I don’t care for rauðmagi, but I enjoy everything else.”

“JARVIS, lunch for six, hold the rooeythmah--what he said.”

Since JARVIS has been programmed with Tony’s taste for excess, what arrives 45 minutes later is a white-tablecloth setup with chilled white wine and enough antipasti and cheese to keep even Thor’s hunger at bay until Steve and Natasha get back. They follow the mission over the comm; the bad guy apparently isn’t so tough without his minotaurs and goes down without much of a fight. In due course there are sirens and helicopters and Steve is complaining that there are more reporters than police.

“Time to wrap things up,” Fury says. “We’ll send the ship to the landing site in 20.”

“Uh, Director?” Tony says. Could you give us about another hour and a half? We have something to finish up here.”

“You still having some trouble?”

“No, we just--” Tony looks at the covered plates of seafood and pasta being kept warm by the sun. “We need to do a mission debrief.”

“Can’t you do that on the ship?”

“No.”

There’s a pause while Fury digests this and hopefully reflects on the fact that he has a bad guy and a live minotaur and a very shiny report to make back to the Council.

“Make it two hours. Just make sure you’re not too debriefed when you get back here.”

“Understood.” Tony reaches for another bottle of vernaccia.

“I want you all to know that following the extremely poor results this morning, I’ve suspended Project Catalyst and let Assistant Director Park know that I’m going to be conducting a full inquiry. Dr. Banner?”

“Yes?”

“There’s still the matter of your status to clear up, but you helped your case considerably with your performance today. If nothing else, I can guarantee that the return trip will be more comfortable for you than the one out.”

“Thank you, Director.” Bruce’s smile makes Tony feel like his heart is going to burst through the arc reactor, maybe cause a meltdown.

“I offer a toast,” Thor says, raising his glass. “To Óðinn Allfather, to our victory in glorious battle, and to those we love--may they come safely home again.”

They all drink, and then drink some more, but manage to keep their hands off the rest of the food until Natasha and Steve appear over the hill.

“Oh my God,” Natasha says. “Tony, you’re a nut. Please tell me there’s cannoli.”

+++++

“I’m not an invalid; you don’t have to carry my bag,” Bruce says, trying to pry it from Tony’s hands. He’s been like this the whole way back, fidgety with anticipation, nervous and trying to hide it.

“No, but as your landlord, I want to go the extra mile for a valued tenant. Especially since the vacancy rate is creeping above 95 percent.”

“You should evict that strange guy in the penthouse,” Bruce says. “All those explosions and alien hot tub parties--he’s bad for business.”

That lasts them until they reach the door of Bruce’s condo and he just stands there, staring at the doorknob.

“It’s your place, Bruce,” Tony says quietly. “You don’t need an invitation. Not a vampire, remember?”

Bruce takes a deep breath and pushes open the door, revealing Pepper, caught in the act of putting fresh flowers on his coffee table. She jumps back, startled, spraying petals and pollen onto the spotless glass.

“I knew there was something going on between you,” Tony says. “Pistols at dawn, Dr. Banner!”

Pepper runs right past him and throws her arms around Bruce. “It’s so good to have you home,” she says and gives him a kiss on the cheek. “It’s been too long.”

“It’s good to see you too, sweetheart,” Bruce says, flushing with what Tony trusts is strictly platonic pleasure.

“No kiss for her boyfriend, you notice,” Tony says.

“You’re not allowed to complain,” Pepper says, arms still circling Bruce’s neck. “Neither of us is traveling for another week; we’ll have plenty of time to ourselves. So...I thought Bruce could join us for dinner. If you’re not too tired, Bruce.”

“Sounds great,” he says, “if it’s okay with Tony?”

“I don’t see why not. Did you cook a roast, dear?”

Pepper just snorts and gives him a little swat on the behind. “Tartuffo is delivering, if you’re not too sick of Italian, dear. Gotta go, I’ve got a teleconference. Bye, Bruce,” she says, extra sweet, giving him a peck on the cheek.

Tony’s not really sure why he stays behind, except that Bruce, when his smile fades with the scent of Pepper’s perfume, is standing there looking like he’s afraid to sit down on his own furniture.

“It’s okay for things not to be normal right away,” Tony says. “You know that, right? I’m not going to think you’re ungrateful if you don’t start jumping up and down on the bed and singing along with the radio.”

Bruce’s slumps down into the black leather sofa, limp with relief. “I am grateful. And I’m really glad to be back. It’s just that--I don’t know how many more of these I have in me. The other guy stays the same, but I’m getting older. Fighting my way back gets harder every time. Even back to this.”

“I know.” Tony sits down next to him, not too close and not too far away. “I know what it’s like to put on a happy face for the world because that’s what they expect and then lie in bed at night wondering where you’re going to get the strength to get up the next day and do it again. But anything you need, anything that’ll help, you’ve got it it--money and power and connections, the best engineers and the most bad-ass assassins. I could use that old cliche, you’re not alone, but in your case that would be a pretty bad joke.”

A smile tugs at the corners of Bruce’s mouth. “Ever since this happened--since he happened--I’ve lived in fear of people depending on me. Now look at me. And I’ve got a glass coffee table. How did I let this happen?”

“Tell me about it. Wanna run away and join the circus? I think we’d be a hit. You especially.”

That earns him the full-on Bruce Banner grin, all white teeth and a kind of world-weariness that’s gone past to despair come full circle to innocence. His eyes get bright, those expressive eyes that Tony has seen both golden and brown. When Bruce opens his mouth to speak, Tony braces himself to repel any expressions of gratitude, because Bruce owes him nothing.

“Any time,” Bruce says, “except tonight. I don’t want to disappoint Pepper.”

Tony smiles because it’s a joke, but also because it’s Bruce, always so quick to sacrifice even when the world had taken almost everything away. Tony is convinced that anything that lives that deep in Bruce must be part of the Hulk, too, because the Hulk is Bruce stripped down to the bare essence, and where the world sees rage, Tony sees fear and a need to protect. Tony knows where that fear comes from; he learned it from Pepper, and from Bruce. It isn’t the first time life smacked him upside the head to teach him a lesson, and Tony just considers himself lucky to be alive to collect the reward.

“Better hurry up, then. You can’t trust that woman around calamari.” Bruce goes to wash up and Tony calls after him. “Calamari is squid, right? I wonder if we’ll get to fight, like, a mutant squid or octopus or something. That would be pretty cool, because I don’t know if I told you about the hydro pack, it’s good for depths up to--”

“You know,” Bruce says, exiting the powder room with his clean hands in the air doctor-style, “I was hoping for no monsters for a while. I just want to sit on the patio for a while in the sun with the Sunday paper. Maybe get out on the golf course.”

“Too late for that,” Tony says, trying and failing to keep a straight face because Bruce can’t either. “Welcome home.”

All that is now, all that is gone (Avengers, Tony&Bruce, R), Part 3

2012-07-07T15:44:53Z

<< Part 2

Tony gets his leather-upholstered ride home, his glass of Balloch 1946, Pepper curled up next to him in front of a blazing fire (it’s a mild April evening, but he cranks up the AC).

The scotch tastes like ashes in his mouth. Well, not really--it tastes like butterscotch and warm spices with the pronounced peatiness characteristic of the war years. But Tony is deflated and unsettled and oddly hurt. None of which he mentions to Pepper, because she went to so much trouble not going to any trouble, to make this a normal night, which is what Tony has been craving since the evac helicopter touched down in Buenos Aires a month ago.

They eat Thai takeout and ice cream right out of cartons and flip through 2000 TV channels on three different screens, Pepper mostly indulging him TV-wise except when he lingers too long on motor sports or sadistic game shows. His weary bones are sunk deep into the sofa, Pepper’s legs are draped across his lap, and there’s nothing wrong with the world except for the feeling of disappointment that sits in him like a rock, untouched by the warmth of alcohol.

After a while, Pepper leans forward and runs a hand through his hair. “You’re wiped out. Let’s go to bed.”

“Sure,” Tony says letting her pull him to his feet. “But no sex, okay? I really am tired and ever since they took the catheter out--” He can only get that far before cracking up at the look of disappointment, sweetly masked by sympathy, on Pepper’s face. “I’m lying. I’m tired, not dead. Let’s do it.”

Her smile reappears and she slides an arm around his waist, but she guides him to the storage room instead of the bedroom.

“I got you a welcome-home present,” she says, pointing to a plastic-sheathed cylinder with an international courier slip on the lid. Tony’s heart skips a beat.

“Is it a puppy?”

Pepper gives him a not-very-gentle shove toward the package and waits, smiling, while he pops the lid. Inside is a powder the color of pencil lead, not exactly exciting, but Tony knows better. He plunges a hand into it and it shrinks away to a precise distance from his skin, leaving not so much as a speck on him. The little machines are apparently on their factory setting of repel. He imagines programming them, teaching them, making them part of his skin--

“How did you do this?” he whispers. “I thought it was going to take at least another week.”

“What can I say? I have friends in New Songdo Research District.”

It may be the hottest thing he’s ever heard come out of her mouth. He follows her into the bedroom, pushing her along with a little hurry up gesture that happens to involve his hands on her rear end. In the elation of having her, in his bed and his arms and as close to his body as any body could be, in the anticipation of starting work with the sunrise, he forgets, for a while, that anything else is wrong.

+++++

When he wakes up he can tell from the way he feels that it’s well before morning. He doesn’t torture himself or Pepper by rolling and sighing and trying to force himself back to sleep. Instead, he slips out of bed and into the living room, still dim in the grey pre-dawn, too early know whether it’s going to be a sunny day or not.

He could go to the lab, but he doesn’t. He’s not superstitious, but he doesn’t want to start the Mark VIII in his current mood. The fog of disappointment has rolled in again, and the dark shape he can discern in it isn’t the Hulk; it’s Bruce.

He realizes now that he’d gone to Bruce looking for explanations that Bruce, swaddled in layers of guilt, philosophy and dubious science, hadn’t been able to provide. But Bruce’s unwillingness to peek out long enough to see that Tony had problems of his own, that his need for information was more than just some pigheaded reductionist bullshit--that had hurt, because it didn’t take a philosopher or a mystic to give Tony what he needed, it just took a friend. And that’s what Tony had thought Bruce was--a depressed and confused friend, maybe--until Dr. Medina and her wavy lines had made Tony think that maybe the feeling wasn’t mutual.

Bruce had sat on this very sofa so many times, talking or eating or watching a game. It was fun having him in the same building; sometimes they even took him along to Malibu, although Bruce was at the point where he could afford his own weekend place (he refused to be put on the payroll at Stark Industries, so Tony paid him what he considered a fair contracting rate for his services, which by normal standards was a pretty fucking huge amount of money). Pepper adored Bruce; there’d been a brief period where Tony thought she maybe even liked him too much, susceptibility to the Banner charm being pretty much universal.

He’d seen slivers of the darkness Bruce always insisted was inside him. Bruce tried so hard to be normal, but when it was just the two of them talking and Bruce let his guard down, things slipped through--hints of childhood abuse, night trains, small town jails, waking up naked and alone after a Hulk episode and having to start over again quite literally from nothing. It was enough to make a devil out of a saint, and Bruce had never claimed to be one of those. Tony had everything in the world--fame, wealth, brains, a woman who loved to make him happy, and most of all, the ability to step in and out of his other identity like the suit of clothes that it was. If Bruce resented him for all that, Tony could hardly blame him. Knowing Bruce, he’d feel guilty for having a normal, ungenerous human emotion, so it would go onto the coal heap with everything else, all the resentment and anger that fueled the Hulk the way vibranium fueled Iron Man.

Tony could talk himself into forgiving Bruce, but not into believing it didn’t matter. More than just a collegial friendship had broken. There was trust, more fragile even than his life.

+++++

“Adaptable, multi-purpose nanites--incredible,” Rhodey says, zooming in on the 3D rendering. “Forget Iron Man--I mean, not forget him, but the military applications are staggering. Just think--”

“Whoa there, cowboy,” Tony says. “This is unfuckingbelievably proprietary technology developed under contract for Stark Industries. You’re here as a private citizen. That’s why I told you to leave the bus driver uniform at home.”

Rhodey is, in fact, wearing a plaid shirt and jeans, an outfit in which he can drink a beer without fear of bringing disgrace to the Air Force. Tony’s invited him to New York to get his input on the Mark VIII, but it’s also nice just to hang out. It’s been too long.

“Let’s get to the point, Stark,” Rhodey says, pointing the neck of the beer at him. “Am I going to get to test pilot this thing?”

Tony lets him sweat it for a minute, Rhodey’s poker face betrayed by the gleam in his eyes. It’s validation; if he can impress Rhodey, he knows he’s on the right track.

“Ah, what the hell. Get us some court time at the Mojave range, bring a twelve pack, and you’re on.”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Rhodey says, giving Tony a thump on the shoulder. “Of course, if you’d rather make it Malibu, we could test the hydro pack.”

“Don’t push your luck. Anyhow, next time you come to Malibu, I’m bringing Pepper and you’re bringing Glenda and we’re doing things like civilized people.”

“Listen to you--it’s like you’ve decided to join the human race.” Rhodey pops the cap off another Bud. “In all seriousness, this new suit can’t be ready too soon.”

“Are the bad guys misbehaving again?”

“You better believe it. We’ve got unconfirmed reports that the Abominable Snowman you fought down south may not be the only mutant creature out there. Suddenly every bad guy seems to have one or be in the market for one. Some of our analysts say that it’s Chinese genetic engineering, others that it’s alien tech. Of course that’s what everybody says these days when they see something they can’t explain. The world was a lot easier when it was just guns and bombs.”

“I like variety. Variety’s good for business.”

“So you say,” Rhodey says with a chuckle. “You just like an excuse to suit up and get out there.”

“I know you are, but what am I?” Tony says, but something in his voice makes Rhodey put the bottle down and look at him with something more than speed-freak comradeship.

“You really okay with getting back on the horse?” Rhodey asks. “You took some serious damage from that snowman, and from the Hulk.”

“Yeah, I got spread around a little,” Tony says lightly, tapping the shoulder plate of the suit so that it makes a metallic ping. “Hence the anti-ablation features.”

“Uh huh. I heard that Banner is in custody, that they’ve got him locked up in some super cell deep in the bowels of HQ. That okay with you, too?”

“No, not really.” The feeling in the pit of his stomach, absent since Rhodey arrived, makes a surprise reappearance. “But it’s complicated.”

“I see.” Rhodey leans back, props his feet up on Tony’s drafting table. “Complicated like Dr. Davis’s nanomaterials class, or complicated like Tony Stark doesn’t tell anyone he’s dying and plans to go out in a blaze of booze and girls?”

Tony, smiles, just a little. “Somewhere in between.”

“You talked to anyone about it?”

“No, I’d rather Pepper--wait, do you mean like a therapist?” Tony’s insides shrink at the thought. “God, no. I’d rather shave my head.”

“Okay, okay. I’d like to see that, but never mind. But if you want another perspective--don’t take this personally, but you don’t have a lot of experience with the fog of war, unless it’s on the visor of your suit.”

“Hey,” Tony says, genuinely affronted. “The Avengers aren’t about spandex and cool explosions and magazine covers. I mean, not only. I know you know that.”

“I’m not suggesting that they are,” Rhodey says. “I just think you’re in a tough position. Most guys only come home once a year. You put on the spandex--excuse me, the armor--and go into the field and you’re back in boardroom by Monday morning. Not much processing time.”

“If you’re suggesting I’ve got some kind of superhero schizophrenia--” Tony begins, voice rising, because Rhodey’s got a lot of nerve lecturing him about job stress.

“I’m just suggesting you need time,” Rhodey says, holding up a placating hand. “Not just the 20 hours a day you spend working on these gizmos. The shit that happens in the heat of battle--most of it you don’t even begin to process until you get home. It’s nature’s way of keeping your sorry ass alive, I guess, but it means you’ve got hard work to do, just when you’d rather be kissing your wife and mowing your lawn. Figuratively speaking, in your case.”

“So you’re saying I’m avoiding it?” Tony looks at the clasped hands in his lap instead of at Rhodey, feeling sullen.

Rhodey shrugs. “It’s your brain, not mine. I’m just asking whether there’s ever a moment when you’re working and you look at the tool in your hand and suddenly it’s like you’re--I don’t know, looking down the throat of a hungry monster.”

It’s so exactly like what’s been happening to Tony for the past three weeks that he catches his breath, then catches himself catching it--too late for Rhodey’s keen eyes.

“Thought so,” Rhodey says quietly. “And you may think you can put it off forever, but you can’t. You tell me, who’s paying the price for that?”

“Shit,” Tony says, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

“So?” Rhodey says, gesturing come on, give with his hand. “This is not an invitation to cry on my shoulder. If I think you fucked up operationally, I’m going to tell you.” The unspoken if not is that Tony might be able to purge himself of the queasy guilt that hits every time the elevator dings past Bruce’s floor.

“Okay,” Tony says. “God, no wonder you’re such a pigheaded asshole in contract negotiations. You want it, here’s the short version.” Tony takes a deep breath. “Nobody’s ever been able to figure out how much of Bruce’s memories or personality the Hulk retains. It seems like he keeps more when he transforms on purpose instead of when he’s really angry, but it’s not predictable. So the rest of us stay out of his way until we have a feel for how he’s going to be that day. He does well with direct, simple orders if they’re coming from someone he trusts, but you never know who he’s going to decide to trust.”

“And that day it wasn’t you?”

“No, it was not. The Hulk engaged with the creature, but it turned out it was booby-trapped. So I tried to call him off, but it’s like trying to stop an earthquake. He picked me up and--” Tony stops, overcome not by the memory of pain, but how strange it felt to be picked up so easily by another being, how helpless. “He used me on the creature like a baseball bat. Sounds kind of funny, right?”

“Not a bit.” Rhodey’s not smiling or frowning, just listening. Tony knows his own story probably isn’t the worst Rhodey’s heard, even this month.

“For the Hulk it was pretty smart, killing two birds with one stone like that.” A lot of what happened down there is blurry, like the snow-flecked air, but Tony remembers feeling impressed, maybe even a little proud of the Hulk, feeling no pain, not even any pressure, thanks to the anti-inertial field.

“Do you think he realized what he was doing? That you could get hurt?”

“I have no idea.” Tony’s voice is sounding a little scratchier than he intends; he hasn’t consciously thought about it in weeks, the work neatly displacing the reason for it. “Bruce doesn’t think the Hulk can store memories of his own, so everything in the Hulk’s brain is in Bruce’s. Whether he can access it is another question.”

“But it’s possible,” Rhodey continues, relentless. “He wasn’t necessarily trying to hurt you, or even disregarding your safety. He could have thought he was being smart, like you said. Or he might not have been thinking at all. Those kind of questions--if Banner doesn’t know the answers, I sure don’t. And I don’t think they matter. Just tell me this one thing.” Rhodey waits until Tony stops fidgeting with a pair of calipers and meets his eyes. “Were you afraid for your life?”

“Yeah,” Tony says with a cough. “Yeah, I was.” He can feel his eyes tear and he’s mad, because he hates pulling that kind of shit in front of Rhodey, but Rhodey just leans over and pats his knee, which feels warm and good through the denim. He’s living in that moment, he’s afraid, but he’s not too afraid to avoid thinking about it any more: the moment he thought he was going to die, in a confusion of blood and bellowing, at the hands of his friend.

“But you didn’t,” Rhodey says, and adds, a little more softly, “Do you ever wish you had?”

“No, no, nothing like that.” If anything, Tony has been at a near-manic level of happiness, dating from the moment he decided, consciously or not, to shut the door on Bruce and his complexities. “I just--I don’t know about going back out there. With him. The Hulk, I mean.”

“That’s not too likely, is it? Not with Banner locked up.”

“Bruce said SHIELD was trying to figure out a way to use him on a limited basis,” imagining as he says it what that euphemism probably involves.

Rhodey’s eyes narrow. “And you trust them to do what’s best for him?

“Fuck, no.”

“Well, then. We have a saying in the Air Force: we never leave a man behind.”

One of the things Tony loves about Rhodey is that he can say things that John Wayne would find corny and sound completely sincere. “Don’t the Marines say that?”

Rhodey shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter; we all live it. And right now you’ve got a man down in the field. What are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t know,” Tony says, his least favorite words ever to say.

Rhodey rises and gives Tony a little pat on the shoulder. As he turns to toss his empty in the trash can, Tony can see that the son of a bitch is smiling.

+++++

Tony has no idea where in the world Natasha is, but he hopes it’s somewhere where she can answer her phone. After a few foreign-sounding rings, she picks up.

”Tony? What’s up?” Tony can hear cars honking and the rush of traffic in the background.

“Hi. Can you talk for a minute? Is this connection secure? I mean from the people who sign our checks.”

He can practically hear her eyeroll. “Yes. And the KGB, AIM, Mossad--”

“Okay, okay. Anyway. I need your helping breaking into the enclosure where they’re keeping Bruce.”

“Finally! I was ready to do it weeks ago, but Steve said we should wait for the go from you, since you know Bruce the best. You’ve talked to him, right? He’s on board with this?”

“Yeah, well--” Tony’s too embarrassed to admit that he hasn’t talked to Bruce in more than a week. “We’re not breaking him out,” Tony says, trying to sound reasonable. “I need to break in. I need to talk to him.”

Natasha gives a huff of disbelief. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just to walk in the front door during visiting hours?”

“This is important, trust me. I need to talk to him alone. That place is monitored up, down and sideways. And it can’t look like we did it.”

”You’re a demanding customer. Anything else?”

“Don’t hurt anyone. He’ll be mad if we hurt anyone.”

“Well, I certainly don’t want to make him mad.” Tony can hear what sounds like bursts of automatic weapons fire. ”Hey, listen, I’ve got to go,” she says with no particular urgency. ”Meet me tomorrow night at midnight at the loading dock across from the officers’ parking lot. No Iron Man stuff, okay? Wear dark clothes and running shoes. Don’t drive your own car and don’t badge in. You copy that?”

“Yeah, got it. Good luck with--whatever that is,” Tony says, but she’s already clicked off.

+++++

At midnight, he gets one of his employees with a base pass to sneak him in using the high-tech expedient of hiding in the back seat.

Natasha melts out of the shadows of the loading dock, noiseless and nearly invisible except for her red hair, which Tony has always figured was a fuck you of the if you can see this, it’s too late variety.

“Seriously?” she says instead of “hello,” pointing at his vintage Dark Side of the Moon T-shirt.

“You said black, it’s black. Plus if we get caught I want to look cool in the booking photo.”

Her lips are uncompressible into a thin line, but she tries. “If they catch us, we’re not going to Rikers. Follow me.”

“Gladly.”

This late, all the bureaucrats and researchers have gone home, and the halls are empty except for guards and the occasional analyst stepping away from the a situation long enough for a smoke or a microwave burrito. Natasha makes sure nobody sees them by staying out of everyone’s way, which is a lot harder to do than you would think, especially when Tony forgets to look where he’s walking and kicks a janitor’s bucket halfway down the hall.

They make it to the double doors of the Department of Hulk and Tony is about to ask what the strategy is when Natasha makes his stomach drop into his shorts by ringing the fucking doorbell. A few seconds later the door budges open and Natasha waves Tony frantically to the side. A sleepy-looking technician pops his head out.

“Hey, I already told the cleaning crew--” he begins, at which point Natasha’s manicured hand reaches around the door frame and hits him with a puff of something from a little bottle that drops the guy to the floor.

“Ring the doorbell and hide?” Tony hisses. “That’s a grade school move.”

“Works,” Natasha says, pulling the guy inside and shutting the door. In moments she’s skinned him, taking his badge and jacket and rolling him under a conference table.

Tony likes guns and rockets and blasting his stereo on the open road, not this pin-dropping stealth that seems to be as well tailored to Natasha as her jumpsuit. As they make their way through the dim laboratory, Tony can feel his nerves waking up one by one, the marching ants making their way up his spine.

Natasha slowly opens the door onto the observation deck, looking enough like the ingenue in a horror movie that Tony braces for something to jump out at them.

Instead, a couple of dark shapes fly by his ear with a vibrating whizz toward the dark recesses of the ceiling. Tony begins to yelp but is stopped by Natasha pinching his arm, hard.

“Ow,” Tony hisses. There’s a tinkle of something breakable hitting the floor. “Jesus Christ. You didn’t tell me you were bringing Clint. How is that covering our tracks?”

“He’s using arrows we confiscated from HYDRA, and he just took out the cameras. He’s also deactivated the monitoring systems from the control room.”

“Oh. Okay. Uh, thanks, I guess.”

They make their way down the metal stairs in twilit gloom to the base of the domed enclosure. Tony can just make out the living section, a lumpy shape that might be Bruce asleep.

Natasha waves the access card against the door reader and gets a red light for her trouble.

“Shit,” she says, perfect brows knitting together. “I can fix this, but it’s going to take a few minutes. Stay here.”

Tony does, and Natasha disappears, soundless, into the gloom. He bounces on the balls of his feet in nervous expectation of a siren going off or a gun barrel pointed at his temple. As the minutes stretch on he just has to move, so he edges a little closer to Bruce.

He remembers the layout from his daytime visit: furniture grouped as if in a small apartment, but artificial and completely exposed, like the diorama in a natural history museum. The lump in the bed does indeed turn out to be Bruce, asleep under a paisley quilt that’s probably supposed to look homey but is like nothing that Bruce (who shares Tony’s love of clean modernism) would ever buy.

Bruce is lying on his back, an arm flung above his head, face impossible to make out in the darkness. Tony can’t imagine having a restful sleep in those circumstances, but Bruce has plenty of practice adapting to his surroundings, sleeping in ditches and waking up naked and disoriented, not sure if he’d killed someone or left a smoking crater behind.

On a team that includes gods and monsters, a guy who wakes up with no memory and no pants is easy to take in stride. Picking up Bruce had become part of the mission plan, aided by a tiny, implantable transponder of Tony’s design. If they were near civilization, Fury sent someone after Bruce, but if not, either Tony or Thor picked up him up, often literally. Bruce wasn’t crazy about transport by superhero, but he was always a good sport about it, including the time that Thor had covered Bruce with his cloak and carried him in his arms like the stud on the cover of a romance novel. Tony hadn’t ribbed him about it because--although on one level the image was funny as hell--on another it was just another one of the little humiliations that came with being not in any kind of fucking control of yourself.

Whatever Vanity Fair had said, Tony doesn’t drop-kick puppies and he doesn’t like hurting Bruce or seeing him get hurt, which makes Tony wonder afresh how he could have left him for almost a month in this hellhole that smells like fear and disinfectant.

“Here we go,” Natasha says in his ear, and Tony almost has a nuclear-assisted coronary. “I had to get it from that doctor.”

“Was it the unconscious kind of ‘get’?” Tony asks, but Natasha’s already swiping the new card. The light turns green and there’s a satisfying click and Natasha flashes a thumbs-up to someone unseen in the darkness.

They enter on the playpen side and have to pick their way around metal debris. It’s got the quiet-too-quiet feeling of entering a lion’s enclosure while the big cat dozes and dreams of lapping up your blood.

Natasha pulls aside the sad excuse for a privacy curtain to reveal Bruce’s sad excuse for a bedroom. In this moment all the metaphysical bullshit about the nature of self is reduced to two voices in Tony’s head: It’s just Bruce and No, it’s not. He freezes, scared to make a sound, conscious that a month ago he would have thrown a pillow at Bruce’s head without a second thought.

“I’ll wake him up,” Natasha says. “It’ll be better that way, trust me.” Tony nods, aware that there’s no such thing as a safe distance anyway.

Natasha is soundless, floating above Bruce like a black moth. She leans down and presses her lips--the lips Tony stares at so often while she speaks, without even meaning to--against Bruce’s. It’s so beautiful that Tony forgets to worry that Bruce will be startled awake and transform into something that isn’t a frog or a prince. Tony can see Bruce’s body tense as he wakes, then relax again, not reaching up to touch the lovely phantom’s hair because you don’t bother to do that to a vision.

Natasha pulls away and Bruce falls back against the pillow, lips still parted, eyes unfocused.

“Hi, Bruce,” Natasha says, a hand still resting on his shoulder. “Sorry about that. It works better than an arm across the windpipe. Especially in your case.”

“It’s-it’s fine,” Bruce says hoarsely, reaching out a hand to fumble at his night stand. Natasha hands him first his glasses, then a plastic cup of water. “What’s up? I hope this isn’t a rescue mission.”

“Nope. Someone wants to talk to you,” she says, and waves Tony through the curtain.

Bruce blinks at him for a moment. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to come during visiting hours?”

Before Tony can answer, there’s something he has to check. He grabs the edge of Bruce’s blanket and throws it off, so that he can see Bruce is wearing institutional pajamas but nothing with wires or tubes.

“Hey,” Bruce says, grabbing the covers back. It’s ordinary annoyance, not the arcing stress that points in the Hulk’s direction, but it still tweaks Tony’s nerves, which are already on high alert. The air feels thick, as if it’s full of gas that’s about to ignite.

“Do you mind if I wait outside?” Natasha says, apparently aware of the vibe.

“Good idea,” Tony says. “I hope you brought a book.” She wastes no time slipping away.

“You do realize coming here was a stupid idea,” Bruce says, throwing back the covers again and swinging his legs around so he’s sitting on the edge of the bed. “And incredibly dangerous.”

With his glasses on and the ghost of a wry smile on his lips, Bruce looks more like himself. Tony wonders how long that’s going to last.

“I agree that it’s stupid for one of us to be in here,” Tony says.

“Are you going to start that again?” Bruce runs a hand over his face. “I appreciate the sentiment, I really do, but--”

“Sentiment? You think I’m here because I feel sorry for you? Fuck, no. I’m disappointed. I’m mad.” He edges closer, a little more in Bruce’s space. “Your life wasn’t easy enough before, living in a multi-million dollar condo, working in your private lab by day and saving the world by--other days? That was such a huge burden that you had to find somewhere where they tell you when to wake up and when to shave and when you can eat a bowl of fucking cereal?”

“In case you’ve forgotten, I didn’t have a choice.” Even in the dim light, Tony can see Bruce’s jaw clenching. “I’m sorry about the apartment, if that’s what you’re mad about. You can rent it out now, I won’t be needing--”

“You’re so right. That’s what I’m mad about.” Tony crosses his arms and raises his voice, hoping that Natasha and Clint have all the nosy little techs and microphones locked up tight. “I’m number 5 on the Forbes 400, and I’m worried that one of my tenants isn’t making rent payments. Or it could possibly be that I’m worried that one of my top researchers is pissing his life away as the five-star attraction on SHIELD’s Safari Adventure.”

“I already explained to you,” Bruce says, the stress creeping further into his voice even as Tony watches him do the deep-breathing Zen thing. “I did what I could, but there’s a time to stop fighting, and that’s when other people get hurt.”

“Of course. It’s always about other people.” Tony’s warming to his subject now, adrenaline up and heart beating double time. “You’re San Roberto de Alamogordo, making sure everybody knows about that big, green cross you bear. Then things get a little bit difficult and you can’t run far enough or fast enough. You leave a trail of destruction, buddy, but it’s not all metal and glass.”

“Don’t talk to me about what’s difficult.” Bruce is inching closer, barefoot and gray-stubbled, the most dangerous man in pajamas that Tony will ever see. “Everyone thinks they know what they’d do in my position. For some people it’s about revenge, getting back at all the people who’ve hurt them.” Bruce’s hands are shaking now, his pale cheeks beginning to flush. “For others the Hulk is a weapon, a tool. What is he to you, Tony? Something shiny for your collection, something that nobody else has? Is that the real reason you’re mad that I’m in here--because somebody else took your toys?” He jabs a finger toward Tony’s chest, just brushing against his T-shirt, but it feels like a 10KV current direct to his heart. “What am I, Tony? What do you think I am?”

The answer forms in Tony’s mind so clearly that it’s almost on his lips before he can stop it. But he does, and the effort of holding it back joins with the tension of being close enough to Bruce to see how dilated his pupils are. It’s like holding an atomic bomb in your hands, knowing that you’ll be no safer across the room or across the city, but with that extra edge of pure insanity. There’s a moment where Bruce is just waiting, breathing a little hard, Tony wondering what kind of chemical transformations are already going on in his blood. There’s no more chance to run away, so he might as well charge forward.

“You’re the stupidest smart motherfucker I’ve ever met. And you’re my friend.”

A green shadow passes behind Bruce’s eyes, and there’s a moment where Tony thinks Bruce might slug him, which under the circumstances would be deserved. Then Bruce takes a step back and collapses on the bed, shoulders slumped, arms limp between his knees. He looks utterly defeated, but Tony knows he isn’t.

He’s won. They’ve both won.

“Wow,” Tony says, starting to shake a little as the adrenaline tide rolls out. “Guess what didn’t happen.”

Bruce doesn’t look like he’s going to be moving anytime soon, so Tony decides to give his wobbly knees a break and sits on the bed, not too close to Bruce but not too far away, since there’s nothing to worry about.

“I don’t suppose you have a barf bag and a bottle of GlenDronach?” Tony gets no answer, so pours himself a cup of water from the plastic pitcher. “You know this place is 10 times worse from the inside. I feel like I should donate more money to the Bronx Zoo. Or maybe campaign to shut it down.” He sips his water in silence.

“I’ve given up trying to understand you,” Bruce says after a while. He sounds exhausted, but he also sounds like Bruce. The brittle tension is gone.

“Most of what I do makes sense in the context of me being a rich asshole. But in this case, you don’t have all the information.”

“Feel free to share,” Bruce says. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep any time soon.”

“Okay.” Tony tries to collect his scattershot thoughts into some kind of logical sequence. “First of all, if you don’t mind my asking--have you been transforming since they threw you in here? I couldn’t help but notice the debris field.”

“Yes,” Bruce says tightly. “And it’s been getting more frequent. Since you mention it.”

“Sorry to hear it,” Tony says lightly, as if Bruce is complaining about a persistent cough. “There’s something else. You said you kept thinking about--the incident. Blood on the snow, stuff like that.” Bruce shifts uncomfortably, making the bed springs creak. “You don’t usually remember anything that happens, so how did you know about that?”

“I saw enough. When I woke up, they were loading you onto the helicopter. I saw the pieces of your suit, and at first I thought the snow creature did it. Then Fury told me what happened.”

“With his usual compassion and sensitivity, I’m sure.”

Bruce shrugs. “He didn’t blame me, but he didn’t soft pedal it, either. He said you were in critical condition and they were taking you a hospital in Argentina. And that they were going to treat me as a Class A Extraspecies threat until they could complete an investigation.”

“Same classification as Loki. Won’t he be mad.”

“They kept me at an abandoned military base until they could get a secure transport. The logistics must have been complicated.”

Tony imagines Bruce huddled in some rusty Quonset hut with nothing but penguins and self-reproach for company, and understands his rapid unravelling.

“I’m surprised they didn’t bill you for it, knowing the government,” Tony says. “But what you saw, what you heard--that didn’t come from what Fury told you, unless you have a really vivid imagination.”

“They film everything. There was a surveillance drone, but most of the video they got from your suit.” As well as the more complex integrated video, the suit has a sort of black box recorder. Under the circumstances (the suit and Tony both being in pieces) he understands why SHIELD would have accessed it, but it doesn’t stop him from feeling pissed. It’s his suit, and his experiences.

“And they showed it to you--the first-person-shooter view of me getting torn up.”

Bruce nods glumly, and Tony fantasizes briefly about paying a return visit to HQ in his suit.

“And you’ve been transforming, and they’ve been conducting behavior studies here--” Tony waves his hand toward the control room. “Did they find the needle in the haystack? Did they figure out a trigger, a way to make you transform?”

“Yes,” Bruce says, so softly Tony almost can’t hear him.

“And--” The words stick in Tony’s throat even though he’s pretty sure he knows the answer, because there’s a horrible and inexorable logic to it. “Bruce, is the way they trigger you to show you the video of me getting hurt?”

Bruce doesn’t answer, but slumps forward and puts his face in his hands. Tony feels unbelievably pissed off and helpless, because he can’t go back in time and stop this. Because they’ve been torturing Bruce for weeks, cycling him through agony and rage, to the point where it’s no wonder the poor man can’t think straight.

Tony lays a hand between Bruce’s shoulder blades, a bit cautiously because if Bruce had ever been a touchy kind of guy, he’s learned to keep physical distance. But Tony can feel his muscles relaxing under the cheap flannel, and hears a slow exhale, as if of relief.

“They’re industrial grade sons of bitches, Bruce,” he says. “I’ve been in the files. They call this Project Catalyst, and they’ve been planning it for years. You know how Fury is always saying the Avengers are still controversial, even within SHIELD? A lot of people don’t like the fact that we can’t be controlled. I’m a rich, independent SOB, Thor isn’t on the planet half the time, and you--the best card in the deck, the one that beats all the other cards--you’re the most unpredictable because you’ve got the best moral bullshit detector. Usually, that is.”

“That’s not true,” Bruce says, frowning. “You do this because you know it’s the right thing, and Steve--”

“Steve hasn’t been doing this long enough to realize how easily his government will lie to him. Unlike you, you knucklehead,” Tony says, giving Bruce a nudge with his shoulder. “They’d like to parade you through streets like they used to parade the missiles in Red Square. But they can’t, so they just write long analyses about Will he or won’t he? And now you’re in New York, and you’re working with SHIELD--it’s like having the candy just out of reach. You fucked things up when you learned to control your transformation, so they had to figure out a way to break it back down. We gave them that, and the perfect trigger, at the same time. And you helped quite a bit by holding still for the butterfly net.”

“So that part of it wasn’t just you trying to get me angry,” Bruce says, turning to look at Tony for the first time. “You believe that I stopped fighting because I was consumed by self-pity, and that when I did that, I made the bad guys’ job easier.” He doesn’t sound angry or morose any more; he sounds like he’s trying to figure things out, rationally and without self-regard, which is what Bruce is capable of at his best.

“I don’t think it was self-pity. I think you were so mad at yourself for what the Hulk did to me that you lost any kind of perspective. Believe me, I get it. You should have seen me for the last month; I had triple-caffeinated energy for anything but thinking about this. I did get a ton of work done on the Mark VIII, though. You’re going to love it. All the bells and whistles, plus it’s Hulk proof.”

“Please don’t say that,” Bruce says with a grimace.

“Oh, I’m going to prove it. Me and Rhodey are going to have a party in the desert, and youre invited, as long as you bring your friend.”

“Sounds like fun,” Bruce says. “Except that you still don’t have your guarantee that the other guy won’t hurt you.”

“Oh, that.” Tony runs his hand over the short hairs at his neck, which are damp and cooling. “It’s fine. It’s not a problem.”

“Because you have a new suit? I got the impression that it’s not about the suit.” Bruce looks away from Tony and down to his clasped hands. “In the video, there’s this moment where you run forward to try to stop him from attacking the creature. The other guy looks at you, and he--” Bruce halts, then proceeds with effort. “He grins, like he’s anticipating how much fun it’s going to be.”

“And you assumed that his evil grin had to do with taking me apart. This is weird to say, because I know he’s your monster, but I think you’re in danger of stereotyping him. You think he was being hostile to me because you fear the worst, and because they’ve been trying to convince you that he’s too out of control to be left safely in your hands. But look at it this way--we didn’t know that the creature’s fur would damage the suit, so why would he? And he’d seen me do all kinds of crazy things in that suit without getting hurt before.”

“I have, you mean.” They’re sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, so Tony can feel Bruce tensing up, but he’s come to far now not to push ahead.

“You’ve said it yourself--you don’t know whether he remembers between visits. So why not give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that at best, the Big Guy was making a mistaken assumption, and that at worst, he just fucked up. We all do it sometimes. Shit, Clint almost took my ear off with one of his arrows.”

“During the mission?”

“No, about an hour ago.”

Bruce gives a little chuckle that turns into a cough, and Tony hands him his cup of water.

“Thanks.” He takes a gulp and hands it back. “So you’re suggesting that it was just an ordinary mistake, something I could have done just as easily as myself as the other guy.”

“I’m doing a little more than suggesting. I’m saying that unless you, Dr. Genius Physicist from C.I.T., can think of an alternate explanation, you’re going to have to accept mine.”

Bruce steeples his hands the way he does in the lab when he’s thinking. “It’s not going to be easy. Even if I accept it intellectually, they’ve been conditioning me to see it the other way for weeks.”

“I don’t recall you caring much about whether things were easy.”

The corners of Bruce’s mouth twitch. “You’re giving me too much credit. I dug myself quite a hole. When I handed myself over to them willingly--what’s that old folktale about walking over thresholds?”

“You’re thinking of vampires. This doesn’t involve vampires. See? It’s not as bad as it could be.”

That gets a genuine laugh out of Bruce. It’s no coincidence that Pepper and Bruce, two of Tony’s favorite people, share a propensity to laugh at his jokes.

“It’s bad enough,” Bruce says. “What are my options? I’ve been classified as an enemy of the Earth. If I run again, there’s going to be a planet-wide APB. out on me.”

“Yeah, but you’re not limited to the planet this time.” Tony hesitates, not eager to put this particular option on the table. “Thor knows this place that’s almost all water, where the land is practically all beach--kind of like Baja, without the all-inclusives.”

“It sounds beautiful,” Bruce says. “Did he really offer that? To take me there?”

“He did. Or anywhere else you want to go.”

“The trouble is that where I want to go, he can’t take me,” Bruce says, a little wistful. “I’ve gotten spoiled. The sages are right--giving up desire is the hardest thing.”

“Hey, I’ve told you I’m the wrong guy to be discussing the Eightfold Path with. I personally own 47 TVs, two soccer teams, and an obscene number of cars. But if you tell me what you want, at least you know I won’t judge you.”

Bruce gives a twisted smile and glances around the room, at the metal side table with the pitcher of lukewarm water, the plywood desk, the plastic chair: everything cheap and impermanent, easy to replace. Nothing that belongs to him. It begins to dawn on Tony what it means to leave everything behind, each transformation a death.

“Go on, tiger,” he says, while he can still speak. “What is it? Your own Caribbean island? Breaking the bank at the Bellagio? Norse goddesses in metal bikinis?”

Bruce smiles so wide that Tony can see his teeth, and a gleam lights his eyes, as if he’s thinking something monstrous.

“Oh, come on,” Tony says. “What?”

“I want my old life back,” he says.

“You mean India?” Tony’s not the type to balk at stealing a guy away from charity work, but he tries to hide his disappointment for Bruce’s sake.

“No,” Bruce says. “Living and working in Stark Tower. Saving the world on the weekends.”

Now it’s Tony’s turn to grin. “You’re right,” he says. “It won’t be easy.”

“Is it even possible?”

“I think so,” Tony says. “A lot of things are going to have to come together for it work and for you--” He gives Bruce’s shoulder a little pat, and is glad when he doesn’t flinch. “That’s going to be the not-easy part. It’s going to mean--” He stops.

“What? Bruce prompts, impatient now, excited. “How crazy is this crazy idea?”

Tony tells him, and Bruce sobers up considerably.

“Wow,” he says. “You don’t screw around.”

“When I thought of it, I didn’t know for certain about you you and the video. I mean, I made an educated guess, but this--” Tony’s breath catches on the enormity of what he’s asking Bruce to do.

“It’s okay,” Bruce says, watching Tony closely. “I said I wanted all the marbles. You told what I had to do to get them. That’s not on you; it’s on me. Can’t promise anything except that I’ll do my best.”

The curtain sways and Tony is halfway to panic when Natasha appears. “Sorry to interrupt, but the guards change shifts in another half an hour. We should be out of here by then.”

“No problem,” Tony says, adrenal glands pretty much tapped out. “I’ll be right out.” The curtain falls lightly back into place.

Tony puts his hands on his knees, intending to stand up, but doesn’t. On the way in, he’d been too worried about the mission, too nervous about what he was going to say to Bruce, to process the fact that he was going to have to leave without him. He’s not used to not getting what he wants, to I’m Tony Fucking Stark not being able to blast open every door. He’s been able to crack it open a bit, but Bruce is the one who’s going to have to walk out.

He tries to stand again, putting a little more conviction into it, but a hand on his own freezes him.

“I want you to know,” Bruce says quietly, “that everything you’ve done, all this effort--”

“Don’t,” Tony says, sharper than he means to, but he can’t bear to hear humble gratitude when Bruce has already been humiliated in every way possible. He tries to stand and walk away and also to not let go of Bruce. Tony’s palm is dry and a little rough, the hand of a maker, but Bruce’s is smooth, his grip light.

“You don’t understand,” Bruce says. “It’s never been like this before. I’ve always been alone.”

“Yeah,” Tony says, giving Bruce’s hand a quick squeeze and letting it drop. “One of many habits I guess you need to unlearn.”

Tony moves toward the door, not sure how much more of this he can take without the embarrassment of having to ask Natasha for a tissue. Halfway there, he stops.

“If you’re ever pissed off at me in the normal, non-Hulk way, I hope you’ll tell me. I don’t want you to feel like you have to hold back because I gave you a job or a place to stay. You deserve those things. So promise you’ll let me know, okay? If I’m ever being more of a jackass than usual.”

Bruce looks back at him with eyebrows raised and a baffled smile on his face. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says. “But you have my word.”

Tony heads for the exit just as Natasha appears again.

“‘Bye, Bruce,” she says. “See you soon.”

“I hope so.” He’s standing there with his arms folded, as if he’s seeing them off after a friendly visit. “Thanks for everything. Careful on the way out; they keep dogs around here. Big ones. Dobermans, I think.”

At the foot of the stairs, Clint emerges from the shadows, security lights glinting off the shiny black of his bow.

“Hey there, Clint,” Tony says, as Clint moves in to cover their retreat.

“Hey, Tony,” Clint says. “Everything okay with Bruce?”

“Yeah, I think it’s going to be fine.”

“Good, good,” he says, eyes searching the darkness. “Hey, did you catch the Knicks game last night?”

Part 4 >>

All that is now, all that is gone (Avengers, Tony&Bruce, R), Part 2

2012-07-07T15:41:14Z

<< Part 1

“Making the nanites smart? But wouldn’t that create a risk? What if you were getting ready to go underwater, and meanwhile the nanites were acquiring mass as fast as they could to harden the alpha-layer casing?”

Pepper’s got a point, although Tony’s not going to admit that out loud. She may not be a scientist or an engineer, but she’s amazing at finding faulty logic and risk factors. She’s got a bottom line, which Tony--being infinitely rich and infinitely smart--doesn’t. She’s also got a ragingly cute body, which is why it’s fun to work side-by-side with her in his full-sized adjustable bed.

In the course of three weeks, he’s gradually replaced everything in the hospital room, taking the proverbial mile from the inch he was given (permission to use an iPad). Now he’s got his own tower computer, projection displays, Barcelona chairs for visitors, and his own chef installed in the kitchen. Five days ago he was allowed to roll over onto his back, and he counts it one of the happiest days of his life.

“Not smart like me,” he says. “Not even smart like you. Machine smarts--an upgrade from bug smarts, which is what they have now. Or had.” Yes, he admits it, he feels a little sorry about the tiny machines left behind in the cold, barren waste.

“Hmm. I guess they’d be under JARVIS’s direct control when they weren’t under yours. I’m not sold; I want to see the logic trees.” Tony finds Pepper irresistible when she’s being a hard-ass, and also when she’s asleep and when she’s brushing her teeth and when she’s wandering around the penthouse in her Wharton track shorts and flip flops. She’s so all-around great that Tony’s kind of amazed she’s still here. When she was CEO she had to worry about him getting himself killed because it would decrease shareholder value; now she has to worry about it because (presumably) it would make her sad. He’s not sure if it’s an improvement.

“I can make that happen,” he says. “I’ll have my people contact your people.” He gives her a little poke in the ribs. “Hey, can you ask the nurse if they’re done processing the paperwork?” Today’s the day he’s getting sprung, and he doesn’t want to be in here a second longer than he has to.

When, after a couple of hours of teeth-grinding red tape, Pepper finally wheels Tony’s chair into the hallway, he feels like launching into a song like Snow White: Good morning, trashcan! Good morning, elevator! Good morning, guy who doesn’t understand why his cell phone doesn’t work 100 meters underground!

His giddiness is muted when Pepper doesn’t wheel him right out to the curb and into the plush Valcona leather embrace of his Audi A8. Instead, he finds himself in another grim military antechamber, surrounded by Access Restricted, Alarm System in Use signs.

“Why are we here?” Tony asks. “You trying to prove to me that there really is somewhere more boring than my room in this miserable base?”

“You said you wanted to see Bruce first. Before we went home.”

Tony feels a stab of guilt. Yes, he had said that, had thought it often enough, in between nagging his teammates who dropped by for a visit: Go make sure they’re not doing anything horrible to Bruce. See if he needs anything.. The thing is, between Bruce’s affable exterior, complex inner life, and very low standards for acceptable human behavior toward him, Tony didn’t trust their opinions. He got lots of He’s fine, he has lots to read, he’s says he’s having fun with the psychological tests, and he’d thought bullshit, because he knows the Catch-22: lock a guy up for being angry, patronize and manipulate the shit out of him while expecting him to say please and thank you, and then when he inevitably cracks under the futility of it all, use it as justification to keep him in longer. It would drive an ordinary person to madness, and Bruce isn’t an ordinary person.

So it would make Tony a pretty miserable friend if he said Screw all that, take me back to my penthouse right now. But that’s exactly what he wants to tell Pepper. The sense of elation is wearing off, replaced by a hint of nausea and a cowardly nostalgia for how much easier it was to stay in bed and not think about anything more complicated than what channel to watch.

He doesn’t admit any of that, of course, and after another couple of minutes, a SHIELD operative arrives in one of those LSVs that Tony persists in calling a golf cart because he knows it pisses Fury off. Pepper helps him into the rear-facing passenger seat, from which he gathers that he’s officially discharged from the hospital.

“You’re not coming along?” he says when she makes no move to get in.

“Not invited. And it’s probably better if you go alone.” She leans down to give him a brief kiss and he smells vetyver soap, a scent of home. “Call me when you’re finished; the car’s waiting outside.” He feels like a kid being put on a miniature train ride, and as the little vehicle putters away, he half expects her to wave.

The SHIELD base is vast, a combination of high-tech playland and Dante’s Inferno that even Tony’s twin personas don’t have full access to. He’s heard plenty of rumors, of alien spacecraft and teleportation and supervillains sealed into impregnable cells, and when he expresses skepticism, Steve just gives him the There are some things civilians are better off not knowing look. To his surprise, though, the party bus is not going down into the villain-laden bowels of the base, but up.

The operative gives him a yes-sir kissoff at an unmarked door, and it opens to reveal a tall woman with dark, chin-length, hair, wearing a polo shirt and khaki pants.

“Mr. Stark,” she says warmly, extending a hand. “I’m Camila Medina. It’s a real treat to meet you. Please come in and sit down--I understand you’re still recuperating.”

“Nice to meet you, too. Are you Bruce’s doctor?”

“Not exactly. Although I am a doctor.” He’s not sure if he likes the way she smiles at that, but he lets her put a hand under his elbow and escort him through a second security door. He takes the proffered chair and sits. The room is like an arena skybox, quiet darkness on one side and a wall of windows and monitors on the other.

What the room is overlooking makes Tony’s jaw drop: a huge geodesic dome with transparent panels, housed inside one of the base’s upsweeping, glass-sheathed towers so that it’s well-protected but flooded with daylight. At one end is a screened-off workspace with a desk and a sofa and a cot, but the rest is taken up with what looks like a playset for King Kong. There are giant rings suspended from the superstructure, piles of lumber and whole trees, a surreal toybox of cars and furniture, nonsensical for a human but perfect for an animal. An animal that likes to smash.

It’s then that Tony spots Bruce, sitting at the desk in the human end of the enclosure. His hair’s a little longer than the last time Tony saw him, and he’s wearing a military-issue sweatshirt, but otherwise seems perfectly fine, oblivious to his surroundings. He’s typing on a laptop with the lightning speed that never fails to impress Tony, who’s an inveterate hunter-and-pecker. It all looks perfectly normal except for the fact that Bruce is in a fucking zoo, locked up the way Fury promised he never would be when he brought him in, and this is so much worse than anything Tony could have imagined.

When he’s able to take a breath again he turns back to Dr. Medina with every intention of throwing her through the skybox windows and into the gorilla enclosure and asking her how she likes it. It must show in his eyes, because she takes a step back. Tony grabs the back of a chair, not because he’s planning to throw it at her, but because he’s suddenly feeling a little wobbly. The wave passes; not the anger, but the feeling the he’s either going to throw up or defenestrate someone or maybe both at the same time (now that would be a hell of a superpower).

“I assure you,” she begins, with a testifying-before-Congress smile, “Dr. Banner is being treated with the utmost respect and consideration. We’ve designed an entirely new--”

“Great! Good for you. You know what? I don’t care. I’m taking him home right now.”

“Mr. Stark, you--” the smile falters a little. “You’re not authorized. No one is; we have a general order not to release Dr. Banner under any circumstances, even to General Fury. But if you’ll let me explain--”

“No explanation necessary,” he says, giving her the ol’ professional smile right back. “I’m the one with the atomic suit and the superpowers. Okay, the suit may be kind of broken right now, but I have friends with superpowers. And none of them are going to stand for--” It’s then he remember that they’ve all been here to visit. Have all seen this travesty, and not done anything about it. His shit list gets much longer.

“I’ll take you to visit him,” Dr. Medina says, making a sound decision not to try explaining any more.

Because just opening the door to the tank and letting Tony walk in would be too easy, they show him into an antechamber and then make Bruce go through an airlock to reach an identical chamber separated from Tony’s by a clear, solid wall with chairs on either side.

Tony’s first feeling is genuine pleasure at seeing Bruce again. Whatever else happens, he likes the guy in an uncomplicated way that he hasn’t felt about any other human since he was a kid.

His second feeling is awkwardness as he realizes that he has no idea what he’s going to say. There’s a simple question--Why?--but he’d imagined that conversation taking place in his living room over a couple of drinks, not with Bruce penned up like a serial killer and Tony on the good-person side of the fence.

It takes Bruce a minute to sit down because he has to rearrange a satchel-like thing bristling with wires and tubes that he wears around his waist. That lets Tony get a good look at him. He’s lost weight; his cheekbones are more prominent and there are shadows under his eyes. The effect this has on Tony is transmuted into a long, awkward pause during which the only things that pop into his head are wise-ass and unsuited to the occasion.

Finally, Bruce settles himself in his chair and folds his hands in his lap like a model prisoner.

“How are you?” he asks.

Tony will never think of that as an ordinary pleasantry again.

Bruce waits for his answer with that affable calm that impresses or maddens Tony depending on the day. He’s never quite believed in it--sometimes he catches Bruce’s hands trembling, or a twitch at the corner of his mouth--but he respects the effort that goes into it.

“Good as new,” Tony says. “Except for the parts that are old.”

Bruce does that little squint-and-smile thing and seems to relax a fraction. It’s how he is--always diffident, like a traveller in a foreign country--but it’s the context that makes Tony a little nuts.

“Well, shit,” he says, punching the arm of his chair. “Am I the only one who finds this awkward as hell? This place--it’s like they think you’re a combination of Hannibal Lecter and Godzilla. You. You play with Pepper’s nieces. You get extra packets of hot sauce from that mean checkout lady at the canteen. You--”

“I’m not the one who’s the problem,” Bruce says. “Remember?”

“Nope,” Tony says, indignation seguing into annoyance. “I’d completely forgotten that you can transform into an eight-foot-tall man-beast that destroyed my suit and broke twelve of my bones.”

Well. That certainly hadn’t been the direction Tony had intended to go, but it’s too late now. Bruce winces and Tony can almost see what’s going on inside his head, because Bruce’s self-blame routine is as predictable as the sunrise.

“Sorry,” Tony says gruffly, “I’m just trying to understand. I know we have a difference of opinion on how much of the Hulk is you, but somebody forgot that we’re playing for the same team. I want to know what that was about, and then I want you to make me not worried about it so I can bust you out of this joint.”

“Believe me, Tony, I wish I could. Thinking about what I--what he--did to you, it makes me--” There’s a quaver in Bruce’s voice that makes Tony feel like the worst person in the world, but he can’t pull back, because he realizes now that if he can’t explain it, he and Bruce will never be able to be teammates again. Maybe not even friends.

“You okay?” Bruce asks. He hunches forward, as close as he can get to the barrier between them, studying Tony’s face like the doctor he used to be. “You went kind of pale for a minute. I know you’re just out of the hospital, maybe you shouldn’t--”

“I’m fine,” Tony says, mouth tight. “Thanks. But don’t change the subject.”

“Okay.” Bruce slumps back in his chair and jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “So. That’s what all this is about. They’re not going to let me back onto the team until they figure out what made me turn on you. They’ve got their top scientists working on it.”

Tony gives a little bark of editorial laughter. “They’re obviously idiots, so I wouldn’t look for any enlightenment in that direction. I’m talking about you. What do you think happened?”

“No idea. I don’t know anything about his thought processes. If he even has them.”

“That’s not the answer I’m looking for,” Tony says. “Try harder.”

“I’m not one of your engineers.” Bruce is trying hard to keep up the wearily amused act. “You can’t order to me to work over the weekend and have an answer on your desk Monday morning. Doesn’t work that way.”

“If you were one of my engineers, I’d fire you.” Tony’s warming to the argument; it helps that he’s genuinely annoyed. “Actually, I’d throw some stuff off my desk for dramatic effect, and then either threaten to fire you or offer you a big bonus. Something. Because the motivation’s clearly missing.”

“Believe me, the motivation couldn’t be any better. You think I don’t want to give you the answers you’re looking for? You think I don’t go to sleep every night hearing your bones crack, seeing your blood on the snow--” He stops short, slumps a little further down in his chair. “It’s just that there are some problems that can’t be solved.”

“Not even for me?”

Bruce chokes up, and Tony has to look away, because Bruce crying is something that he doesn’t want to see, ever. “I’ve tried for years, ever since it happened. The only thing that’s ever worked is walking away. The Avengers....I thought the risk would be acceptable, the good would outweigh the bad. To use the creature to help humanity was something I--but it was an arrogant mistake on my part. I should have known. It can’t be a force for good, it can’t be a force for anything but itself. Maybe you’ve been right all along. The other guy is me. That’s who I am, a greedy, monstrous--”

“Stop it, just stop it,” Tony spits. “Jesus, is this what you turn into when you’ve got no company but your own thoughts? You’re a scientist, and you’re a good man. We’re all monsters inside our own heads; it’s a bad sign if we’re not. I used to make weapons that killed hundreds of thousands of people and I slept like a baby. When I got back from Afghanistan, I was lucky if I could sleep for 10 minutes at a stretch. A conscience is a hell of a thing, Bruce, and yours is way overdeveloped. But at some point you’ve got to fight your way out of the cave. You’ve got to move past it and start looking for solutions.”

“This is the solution. When I’m in here I’m not hurting anybody. Maybe they’ll figure out a way to use the other guy on a limited basis, without having to interact with the team. It’s not all bad; I’m allowed to work, people visit me, and--”

“You’re not a fucking zoo animal.” Tony’s on his feet now, shouting, and he doesn’t care who hears it. “You’re not supposed to be happy because the nice lady throws you peanuts once in a while. Is the Big Guy happy? You tell me that. Does he enjoy his blocks and his jungle gym? Or does he want to tear into something alive every once in a while?”

There’s a long pause in which Bruce looks as shocked as Tony feels. There’s a pain in his side, like maybe he popped a stitch, and a general reminder from his body that he’s only been upright for a few hours.

Bruce ducks his head, stares at his folded hands. “You should go. You don’t look well. The last thing I want is to make things worse.”

“Yeah, well, things are already pretty fucking bad.” He clears his throat; his ears are ringing from the sound of his own voice. “I’m not asking for much; just give me an idea, a place to get started. You have Internet access, right?” Bruce nods, head still bowed low. “Then you know how to get JARVIS to find me. Any time, day or night.”

He turns and walks out without looking back so that he won’t have to see Bruce getting escorted back through the airlock, or worse, sitting motionless, looking at Tony’s retreating back.

“Before you go, I’d like you to see something,” Dr. Medina says, blocking his way with an iPad and a cup of coffee.

The doc pilots him into another side room and he’s too fried to resist. It’s like half the rooms at HQ--full of visual displays being tended by low-level techs who probably use “I work at SHIELD” to get laid.

“We’re constantly monitoring Dr. Banner’s blood chemistry,” the doctor says, waving at the readouts. “Also his brain activity, cardiac data, and metabolism. We cross-correlate it with environmental conditions, behavior, and diurnal rhythms.”

“Gee, I bet nobody’s thought of doing that before.”

“Never this extensively. We’re using investigative techniques from a wide range of fields, from behavioral psychology to biophysics. Look at these,” she says, pointing to a set of dark green peaks and valleys. “They’re Dr. Banner’s current levels of dopamine, norepinephrine and epinephrine.” Tony realizes with a jolt that he’s looking at real-time data--no doubt coming from the wired-up albatross around Bruce’s waist.

“Am I supposed to be seeing this? Isn’t it a HIPAA violation or something?” Tony’s fresh off three weeks of being fed, bled and serially probed, but his doctors were trying to help him, not “help” him. This total loss of privacy--being kept in a glass cage and having his precious bodily fluids monitored 24/7--is exactly what Natasha had promised Bruce would not happen when they brought him in. It’s also his deepest fear. Tony knows because Bruce told him, along with with a lot of other personal stuff Dr. Medina would probably give her next three years of grant funding to hear. He decides to start hating her again.

“Dr. Banner has submitted voluntarily for testing, but if he hadn’t--”

“I’m sure somebody with a gun would have asked nicely.” Tony jabs a finger at the screen. “Can we move this along? I have an appointment with somebody who isn’t you.”

“Of course. These chemicals are hormones, which--”

“I know what hormones do. I get medical stuff.”

She frowns at him over her glasses. “Which also function as neurotransmitters in the brain. They’re associated with the fight-or-flight response. With fear, anxiety--and anger.”

“And let me guess--Bruce pumps out more of them just before he turns into the Hulk. Wow! You should schedule a press conference immediately.”

“Mr. Stark, I’m trying to show you something important, will you please shut up!” That does, in fact, get Tony to shut up, and the technicians to swivel their eyes toward their boss with surprise and maybe some added respect.

“Sorry, doc. I get sarcastic when I’m exhausted. Please go on.”

“Thank you. I’ll be brief. These are Dr. Banner’s baseline readings--more or less average. Now look at these.” At her gesture, the tech pulls up another set of readings. “Much higher across the board, with an interesting spike in cortisol levels, which are usually associated with physical threat. These results are reproducible, and substantially different than what we see associated with transformation episodes.”

“Huh.” Tony grudgingly admits (if only to himself) that Dr. Medina’s observations don’t seem to be based entirely on crap. “Why did you want me to see this?”

“Because these readings were taken 15 minutes ago, when you were visiting with Dr. Banner.”

“And the other times you’ve seen this?” Tony braces, as if he were about to hear the punchline of an unfunny joke.

“When we’ve shown Dr. Banner video of you.”

“Of Iron Man, you mean?”

“No, Mr. Stark. Of you.” Tony appreciates her sympathetic tone, not to mention the hand under his arm as the room goes a little fuzzy. “I’m sorry, I can see I’ve kept you too long. But I thought this was important for your safety. In case you had any--ideas about removing him from the facility.”

Tony thinks it’s nice of the doc to be concerned about saving his life when he’s been kind of a jerk to her. If he weren’t feeling so dizzy, he might even admit he’d been thinking about ways to bust Bruce out, even up to a few minutes ago.

Not any more. Tony catches his breath, shakes hands with the doctor, and closes the door with relief, leaving the blinking green numbers and Bruce Banner behind.

Part 3 >>

All that is now, all that is gone (Avengers, Tony&Bruce, R), Part 1

2012-07-07T15:30:10Z

The one thing Tony never tells Bruce is how completely, exhilaratingly shit-scared he is of the Hulk.

It’s never a problem when Bruce is just Bruce. Bruce’s head is stuffed with bullshit theories about his alter ego--protection of a damaged child, a perverse kind of self-glorification, monsters from the id. When Bruce lets them drop in that offhand, disinterested way he has with anything that concerns his own suffering, Tony listens and nods and feels his opinion of psychology as a “science” drop another 10 points.

Bruce is the most genuinely kind person he’s ever met. Tony’s never regarded that as a strength, but he understands now how wrong he was. Among the other, more profound things, it’s magnetically appealing in a way that makes Tony a little jealous. But the rumpled chivalry, the shy hopefulness--any look that depends on selflessness and modesty is a look he’ll never be able to pull off.

But the Hulk, on the other hand, reminds Tony of the first time he saw a missile test. It was a birthday present from his dad, the chance to go out to Nevada and watch an H-bomb bloom in the desert. He’d been so excited, not able to conceive of anything beyond the world’s biggest boom, looking forward to that pure violent rush that’s fuel to little boys. And then he saw it, silent at first, ugly beyond belief, a ball of pure, white horror swelling to consume the world. He’d clutched at his father’s wool trouser leg, and his father had gripped his shoulder and whispered, “Isn’t it beautiful?”

The Hulk fills him with that same vibrating awe, an elemental horror that is, at its core, a desire to possess. Tony fights that impulse, because the Hulk isn’t a weapon, he’s a being--of what kind, Tony doesn’t know. Bruce treats the Other Guy as a balloon of unreasoning rage, but then among Bruce’s ridiculous theories is the idea that he’s some monster of anger himself. Tony knows that any random person he grabs off the streets of New York could be angrier than Bruce--at the person who elbowed her on the subway, the cabbie who wouldn’t take him to LaGuardia. For a guy who’s spent so much time studying himself and being studied, Bruce is pretty much an idiot when it comes to self knowledge. So why should Tony trust him when it comes to his other half?

Still, Tony stays away from the Hulk in the midst of battle, leaves the wrangling of the rage monster to gods and soldiers. It’s Bruce he looks after, when the green balloon pops and it’s just his friend, naked and sheepish inside a crater or on top of a pile of rubble. Tony’s pretty sure he’d be jumping up and down on that pile of rubble if it were him, yelling Look at me, look what I did. The naked part would be the icing. But there’s no destructive little boy inside of Bruce. He’s the one who should have the glowing heart, not Tony. And Tony could be a hell of a monster, he’s sure of it.

+++++

Bruce is wearing a cable-knit sweater, which is appropriate for the weather but ridiculous for a member of a superhero team. Tony offered, once, to have something made for him--easy when you know the world’s top industrial designers and supermodels. But Bruce had shrugged and smiled and said, “I like not having to watch what I eat,” and then, “besides, I have a great costume, and I never have to send it out to the cleaners.”

“Romanoff and Barton will lead the way; Stark, Rogers and Thor will stay close behind in case they encounter resistance while they’re disarming the security perimeter.” Nick Fury is in his stand-and-deliver stance, hands clasped behind his back, eye focusing on each of them in turn as if their attention could somehow wander in the close confines of a submarine. “Banner, you’ll be on standby. In case of the unexpected.”

“Sure,” Bruce says. “I fully expect it.”

Tony doesn’t understand why Fury is repeating all this, since they were all involved in the planning and have the attack sequence planned down to the microsecond. Maybe it’s plausible deniability, so that when things go inevitably and excitingly wrong, he can remind the generals that they were all fully briefed. He’s surprised that Fury doesn’t make them all sign a waiver.

What Tony does understand is that it’s fucking cold a thousand meters deep in the Amundsen Sea. He prefers the kind of supervillains who hole up in Vegas or L.A. The North Pole, even--it was good enough for bad guys in his father’s day. But no, this supervillain (who at least isn’t calling himself the Penguin, gracias a Dios) has set himself up in the Transantarctic mountains, forcing Tony to add an enhanced climate control system to the suit, along with hot chocolate pods for the espresso maker.

They pile into the Triops sub-launched helicopter (courtesy of Stark Industries, another lucrative government contract, and another robust quarter of double-digit growth). Bruce helps them load equipment like the good team player that he is, even though he’s likely to be stuck carrying the Gatorade this time around. They’ve got a map of the lair that’s detailed to the level of the villain’s hair follicles, thanks to a friend of Fury’s with X-ray vision. In and out, that’s the way Tony likes it, and says so often enough to make Steve blush and Thor puzzled.

“It’s lucky we don’t need you this time around,” Natasha says, giving a sideways glance at Bruce, who’s in his socks, for God’s sake. “This isn’t exactly shorts weather.”

Then the sub breaches and there’s a lot of noise and cold that goes right to Tony’s teeth before he can pull his visor down. That last thing he sees as the chopper ascends is Bruce giving him a little ta-ta for now wave, the way his mom used to when he went riding. He’d always felt a bit guilty, knowing what he was about to get up to. He feels the same way now.

+++++

It turns out that Fury’s X-ray friend can only see living beings as blobs, which is a reasonable explanation for why the “guard dogs” on the map turn out to be mutant albino superwolves. One of them manages to take a bite out of Clint before Tony and Thor start blasting and clobbering, respectively, but there are a lot of them, snarly and horrifying but also kind of fun to fire at, like a video game. That may be why Tony doesn’t notice the other thing, the thing that casts a shadow like the Matterhorn and moves with the slow, deliberate pace of a forest on the march.

It’s barely humanoid, identifiable only by the vaguest of outlines, a body and limbs and a head like a snow shelf ready to be let loose in an avalanche. Instead of eyes it has a single, probing searchlight, and where the searchlight sweeps an icy blast of destruction follows.

“Fall back to entry point, retreat Alpha six.” Natasha says inside his helmet. Tony’s still not completely down with the military code but it sounds cooler than “Run away.”

“Good idea,” he says, really, really looking forward to getting some speed and distance and altitude on this thing that’s barrelling behind them like a ski slope that wants to ski him. “While we’re at it, can we call Bruce and tell him to suit up?”

“Already on it,” she calls back. He likes that about Natasha; she doesn’t waste words. They’re all getting the fuck out of there by various means, Steve carrying Clint, Natasha running and dodging, Tony under his own power, and when they burst out of the tunnel, Tony’s never been so happy to see icy cold nothing, and--

A tower of green, barely visible in the twilight. A big, green, scary, crazy monster, but he’s their scary, crazy monster. And he’s an unstoppable force that Tony will put against any immovable object, although the mutant yeti seems to move pretty well.

“All yours, big guy,” Tony yells, and clears out of the way just in time not to get buried as the yeti crashes into the open air.

He coughs some snow out of his windpipe and is just settling in for the best monster battle ever when he notices a weird radiation reading coming off the yeti. It’s not all that strange that a mutant monster would come with bonus radioactivity. But it is strange that there would be that much, and concentrated in--

Oh, shit.

“It’s a bomb!” he yells to nobody and everybody. “There’s a bomb inside that creature! It’s--” The yeti is a boobytrapped teddy bear designed to take out the Big Guy, he’s sure of it. Just as sure as he is that the Big Guy is eating this up, blood running hot at the chance to take on something his own size.

Tony wonders, briefly, if Bruce got a chance to take off the sweater before he transformed. He kind of liked the sweater.

Natasha’s set a couple of Cryolight flares so that they can see the battlefield. The two creatures are circling each other, the Hulk clenching his fists and baring his teeth in that weirdly morphed version of Bruce’s lopsided smile. The second they make contact there’s going to be monster blood and fur everywhere, and nothing will be able to stop them.

Thor’s already in there, doing the special effects show, trying to distract the yeti. Steve’s gone, probably taking Clint back to the boat. If Thor can’t bring the creature down--and he can’t--then it’s only a matter of time before the Hulk gets impatient and takes matters into his own hands.

Tony decides to beat him to it. He slides his visor down and accelerates to the edge of the blazing white circle.

“Hey!” he yells, waving his arms, the way you do to make yourself look big in front of a bear. “Over here! Listen to me!”

Hulk is admittedly not too good with the multitasking. He looks away from the creature--currently semi-visible inside a pretty nifty tornado--and cocks his head, listening (or so Tony hopes).

“That’s right, that’s good, Big Guy. You’ve got to trust me on this--that yeti thing? I know it looks like chocolate ice cream to you--vanilla--whatever. There’s a bomb inside. You hear me? A bomb, as in, kaboom. So we’re going to have to walk away from this one. Got it?”

The answer seems to be no. He frowns at Tony, eyebrows like industrial-sized caterpillars, trying to understand. Somewhere inside this tank of green muscle is Bruce’s brain, but Tony’s never been sure where, or how much, and the speed of the neurons is bounded by the speed of light--or, put another way, the Hulk is unlikely to ever finish a New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle.

Just then, the yeti makes a lunge from under its personal weather system, its claws raking against the Hulk’s tough hide, not enough to pierce the skin, but apparently enough to hurt.

Pain is something the Big Guy understands very well. Betrayal is another. Like what he might feel in that highly reactive nervous system if he rubbed two thoughts together, and those thoughts were Puny man distract Hulk and Big Monster take tactical advantage of distraction. In other words, really pissed.

For once, Tony and the Hulk seem to be thinking in sync as easily as Tony and Bruce usually do. It takes the commands longer to reach the Big Guy’s limbs, but then, when he raises a giant hand to swat Tony back to the ground as he tries to fly away, it has the same effect as when a human swats a moth. Speed isn’t always an advantage. An advantage is an advantage, and by any measure of Hulk’s advantages, Tony is well and truly fucked.

The body slam into the ground isn’t really a problem, not with a billion little nanites doing their anti-grav thing. Tony plays dead in the snow, hoping the Big Guy will get back to monster business, but then he feels an iron hand close around both ankles, and he’s hoisted in the air, dangling head down like a very expensive Peking duck.

There are a few moves he could try--would try, if they were in the lab or training center--but he decides to stick with what’s worked in the past, which is to let the Hulk shake him around like a rag doll to see if he’ll do something interesting. He doesn’t take it personally; most of the team, at some point, have been swatted away like pesky insects or inspected as if they might be edible. Bruce usually compares the Hulk to a furious toddler, but Tony considers him more like a badly trained dog, grasping the broad outlines of right and wrong but not sure how to apply them.

That fine theory disappears in a rush of wind as the Hulk swings him around like a club and uses him to clobber the yeti. The first few whacks have no real effect other than to give Tony a few seconds to admire the Hulk’s commendable problem solving in combatting an annoyance and an enemy at the same time.

Then the retinal display decides to pass along some interesting information about the composition of the yeti’s “fur.” It’s actually long, thin tubes of lonsdaleite, one of the three known substances stronger than diamond. Tony didn’t know that it could be made so fine and flexible, or that it could shred the surface of the suit, though he probably could have guessed. The impact is throwing warnings up left, right, and center, quality programming work but otherwise useless.

Five, eight, ten good whacks upside the yeti and Tony is feeling like a coconut ready to crack. As the Hulk whips Tony over his shoulder, winding up, Tony sees the red of Thor’s cape streaming through the green and white, but it’s too late. With the next blow, the suit shivers and falls away, the nanites sifting away like coal dust.

Tony feels skin and bone destroyed at the same time, one from the impact of the blow and the other from the diamond-like needles of the yeti’s fur. They drag like a million tiny rakes across the skin of his back and shoulders, Tony having been quick enough (just) to cover his face. His scream blends with the creature’s; they’re both in terrible trouble, though the yeti is some robot-mutant and Tony is (at the last) a being of soft flesh and blood.

And the Hulk? Whatever else he may be, the Hulk is Bruce. Now, in the last moment of his life, Tony still remembers.

He opens his eyes a couple of times after that, not in the the good thank God that’s over way but in the bad something went seriously wrong in my life and still isn’t any better way.

The first time is the worst, because he’s being moved, and he wants to scream for fuck’s sake leave me alone to the people attached to the boots carrying him across the snowy waste. He is screaming, and with good reason, because it feels like he’s opened up from neck to waist, every nerve ending exposed to the air. The cold feels good for the first few seconds and then it’s like a second wave of violence, this one on a molecular level, determined not to stop until he’s been ground to dust like his suit. It not only doesn’t stop, it gets worse, because the secret of life is that it can always get worse, and if he could form a sentence it would be I know one of you assholes has a sidearm, please use it. But he can’t, and so it’s like the mind-crushing agony version of being seasick, no ambition save what his body wants: to be put out of its misery, by drug or death.

About a thousand years later, he gets the drug. It sweeps through his body like a warm wave, a sweet, rolling, Caribbean tide. The pain doesn’t just stop, it transmutes into something beautiful: a cloudless sunset, a bed with crisp white sheets, pale curtains swelling in the breeze. The air itself is like a pillow he can rest on, the way he’s never been happy just resting in his whole life--

There’s a pinch on his arm, easy to ignore. Then the dappled shade turns into bright, white light and noise, a hard chop chop chop and there’s a surge of energy going through his veins, the veins that apparently still exist along with the rest of his body, and on some level he knows the damage is still there but he feels amazing, blood like molten gold, brain whirling into overdrive like when he’s on one of his benders in the lab, except that he can’t get any thoughts to stick around for more than a millisecond. They spin around his head like supercharged fireflies, and then he’s rising--no, ascending, feeling the pull against gravity the way he can’t in the suit, but the blaze is so familiar--

This is the way death should be--Tony Stark’s death, anyway: amazing, transcendent, the Valkyrie sweeping him up to Valhalla just the way Thor told him they would because Tony is a warrior, a baller to the end, and his Valkyrie have metal bikinis. Fuck crashing into the ground, fuck wasting away in a hospital bed, fuck quiet desperation and the taste of metal in your mouth, because this--this is speed and antigravity, this is tracer comets and cheerleaders--this is motherfucking Death, a Tony Stark Production.

+++++

When he wakes up again, his first thought is surprise and the second is profound disappointment. He’s still lying face down because apparently lying on his back is a thing of the past, but at least his head is turned to the side, so that he can see, left to right, a plain white wall, Nick Fury, and a metal nightstand holding a plastic water pitcher. All those things seem equally tedious, so he closes his eyes again, hoping to maybe catch a stray Valkyrie waiting for the bus home.

“Stark,” Fury says, with uncharacteristic quietness. “You awake?”

“I’m dead,” Tony says, keeping his eyes closed. “Can’t you tell the difference?”

“You feeling like you are? Because I can get one of the docs in here to give you something--”

“No,” Tony says with a sigh. It’s tempting, because Tony’s got some heavy though mundane aches and pains, plus the prospect of days (maybe weeks or months) of serious boredom, but he knows he’s got some weaknesses in that direction. “Some water would be good, though.”

He sounds weird to himself, like a duck that’s been smoking. “No, don’t pour it, call a nurse,” he says, as Fury moves with undue haste toward the water pitcher. He doesn’t like the image, it’s--too solicitous, or apologetic, or something; too latent with bad news. “Hey, where are my fucking flowers? Something like this happens, and the team doesn’t even send flowers?”

“Have they told you what ‘this’ is?” Fury says, getting straight to the point as usual.

Tony feels a childish desire not to know, because then it will be real. As it is, he’s got nothing--no sense of time, or of the extent of his injuries, and only a blurry smear of what happened--something involving an ice monster and the Hulk and a lot of smashing and Not Good.

“Go ahead,” he says finally. “You know you want to.”

“Twelve broken bones, including six ribs and your back. No spinal cord damage, no brain damage, nothing neural. But your skin--” Fury rubs his hands together like he’s limbering up for surgery. “It’s a good thing you know people who know people who know a lot about tissue cloning.”

Fury’s not the sugar-coating type, so Tony figures that this information plus the fact that he’s alive (albeit in some kind of high-tech traction) are in fact the extent of the bad news, at least as far as it concerns him.

“Am I still pretty? Will girls still like me?” Tony asks, and Fury’s face changes from nominal sympathy to you’re-a-wiseass scowl. “Never mind, I’m still rich. How is everybody?”

“The team is fine. Everybody made it back in one piece--except you, of course. And the mission was successful.”

“Yay, us.” Tony could strain a muscle trying to care about the mission, but that would just extend his recovery time.

“How much do you remember?”

“Well, if I don’t remember, I don’t know, do I?” Now that he knows nothing’s blowing up, he feels annoyed and peevish. The skin on his back itches, the nurse hasn’t shown up with water, and he’d give one of his Cezannes to be able to shift position.

“Think,” Fury says, like it’s an order.

He remembers snow. He remembers a bad guy and a typically convoluted plan to take him out. He remembers guard dogs and things going quickly and dramatically to hell. He remembers--

He remembers.

There’s a long silence during which Fury holds his gaze steady, as Tony’s brain replays the battle, as if it were an old movie with blips and skipped frames: the yeti creature attacking, Tony pissing off the Hulk, the Hulk using Tony as a club to tee off on the yeti, and then a lot of major league pain and probably blood and screaming as well. There’s a lot that’s wrong with the picture, a lot that will probably give Tony nightmares once he’s allowed to have them. There are a lot of gaps and questions, too, but one stands out in the crowd.

“How’s Bruce?”

Fury nods tightly, like he’s been expecting it. “He’s unharmed.”

Tony’s stomach does a queasy roll, and not because of the hospital food. “He’s unharmed” isn’t something you say about a regular person, a friend; it’s something you say about a hostage.

“Where is he?”

Now Fury’s good eye is looking everywhere but at Tony. “We had to put him somewhere secure until we can figure out why the Hulk turned on you. We’ve got human and animal behaviorists, psychologists, you name it--”

“God damn it.” Tony’s anger burns suddenly hot, and his muscles clench enough to pop a few stitches. “Where do you have him, in one of those supervillain fishbowls? Guards ‘round the clock, year-old magazines, no contact with the outside world?”

“It’s not that bad,” Fury says, looking like he’s prepared to physically restrain Tony if necessary, which given the situation is a laugh. “We had a containment facility built after Banner joined the team. It’s perfectly humane, there’s even a computer--”

“Yeah, I get it, it’s a jail. With a bunch of numbnuts ‘researchers’ hooking him up to E-meters and asking him to think about--” Tony stops, and sucks in a little air, because he knows immediately what Bruce is thinking about in his adamantine holding tank. He’s thinking about how he hurt Tony--how the Hulk hurt Tony--and internalizing the guilt in the way that only someone with the brain of a genius and the conscience of a Buddhist monk could. The Hulk does Bruce’s damage or takes it, depending on the situation, and Bruce is left in the smoking crater to clean up the physical and metaphysical damage. “How soon can I see him?” Tony asks finally.

“As soon as you’re mobile. A few weeks, maybe? I don’t know, you should ask your doc. But really, he’s all right. People have been visiting him. He’s in good spirits.”

Fury knows about every technology ever invented to break things, but he knows shit about Bruce Banner. The Hulk is a weapon that happens to live inside Bruce’s body, and Bruce deals with that because he has no choice. He’s not throwing his metal trays of meatloaf and two veg at the wall because he knows it won’t do any good, but the frustration is still building. Construing that as being in “good spirits” is so wrong that it makes Tony’s skin itch ten times worse than before.

“Right. Sure. And hey, at least we put an end to the horrifying reign of--what was that guy’s name?”

“He called himself ‘Ice Age’.”

“Jesus, what a stupid villain name. He deserved to go down just for that.” Suddenly Tony is very tired, in general and of having Fury in the room. “Please go away now, and send in someone prettier with some freaking water.”

Fury nods and departs, leaving Tony alone with a blank wall and a deep wish not to think for a while. Unfortunately, thinking is the only thing he has to do. He and Bruce have at least that much in common.

Part 2 >>

Getting There (Kirk/McCoy, PG)

2012-03-10T21:51:01Z

A little something for the ever-encouraging and uplifting weepingnaiad on her birthday.

Jocelyn always maintained that there was no such thing as a bad party. Leonard now knows from bitter experience that this isn’t the case. This particular party is that deadliest of diplomatic events, a reception--less food than at a dinner, less business than at a meeting, and as much standing as at a ceremony without the fun of guns or music.

Leonard accepts a glass of something pale and cold from a tray (he’s left the alluring plates of snacky things alone since the time some presumptive calamari turned out to be deep-fried Andorian bear spiders). He raises the glass in silent toast to Jim: You were supposed to be here half an hour ago; may you have a damned good excuse, or else.

Leonard’s saved from terminal awkwardness by the appearance of Admirals Boyce, Pike, and Subramanya. At any ordinary event, the sight of so many pips and medals--even on the chests of old friends--would be enough to give Leonard agitata, but Leonard is heartily grateful to see them.

“Enjoying yourself, McCoy?” Pike asks with a knowing smile as they exchange handshakes all around. He’s got more gray hair than the last time Leonard saw him, but is handsomer and more self-assured nearing 60 than Leonard ever hopes to be. “Where’s your mouthier half?”

“In some godforsaken committee meeting,” Leonard says. "Sir."

"Appropriations? But that let out hours ago." Admiral Subramanya has a way of registering disapproval that makes Leonard feel like an eight-year-old late for his piano lessons. "President Van ko Liir specifically asked to meet him." Subramanya's arched eyebrow indicates this she considers this an unwelcome but not unexpected request.

It's been this way ever since they landed Earthside. Since winning the Battle of N'Veda against a much stronger Klingon force, Jim's been a more popular tourist attraction than the cable cars and shuttled around about as much. Starfleet may not fully trust Jim yet, but they're more than willing to use the nimbus of his fame to light up dark places. The fact that officialdom has eaten up two-thirds of their shore leave seems to bother no one but Leonard himself.

"I'm sure he'll be here, sir," Leonard says, unable to guarantee any such thing.

"You two getting any time off?" Boyce, Pike's partner, is equally keen-eyed and prone to mind reading, but seems to regard his and Jim's relationship with a kind of proprietary kindness.

"We have a cottage booked in Fiji. We were supposed to be there yesterday, but--"

"Duty calls," Boyce finishes. "Story of our lives, yes?" The admirals all chuckle and knock back sizable gulps of their drinks. Leonard supposes that one day he'll be as philosophical when it comes to bureaucratic idiocy; he's quite sure Jim never will.

There's a ripple of chatter and heads turning. Leonard glances toward the entrance of the reception hall and sees Jim. He's immaculate and, to Leonard's eyes, irresistible in his dress grays (which fortunately are resistant to wrinkles), but there's something…else. His smile is a little too brilliant, his eyes a little too sparkling, and he's got that expression on his face that says Show it to me, and whatever it is, I'll fight it, fuck it or fix it.

There's no doubt about it: Jim is lit up like a Christmas tree. Leonard feels his heart sink into his shoes and glares at Pike in a way that he hopes says You know the stress he's under; you wore him out. Now do something, goddamn it! Even in his mind, Leonard adds the sir.

But Pike does nothing, just exchanges a glance with Boyce, grabs another drink off a tray, and settles back to enjoy the show.

Leonard follows Jim's progress around the room like he's watching a slo-mo shuttle crash. Jim's beaming charisma draws every eye, and so every eye sees him clap the Vulcan ambassador on the back, whisper something in Admiral Gautang's ear that makes him turn a darker shade of blue, and suck the meat out of a crustacean shell in a manner that should be forbidden around children under 16.

"What's gotten into Kirk tonight?" Subramanya demands. "Whatever it is, it looks like it's about a liter too much. The Chief Protocol Officer might be needing your services soon, Doctor."

"Good God," Leonard whispers, "I've got to stop him." But his legs have gone numb with apprehension at the sight of Jim approaching a Tellarite dignitary in a low-cut tunic.

"I wouldn't worry," Boyce says quietly, putting a hand on his arm. "You know what Chris always says? 'They may not approve of the methods, but they always appreciate the result.'"

Jim's path of near-destruction finally brings him around to their side of the room. He arrives in a cloud of champagne fumes and bonhomie and kisses Admiral Subramanya's hand before draping his arms around Pike and Boyce.

"Did you stay at Appropriations long enough to see Ferelli's revised numbers for the Nebula class redesign?" Pike asks, unperturbed.

"Yeeeah, and they were awesome. Everything is awesome. Bones! " he says suddenly, as if he'd just noticed Leonard standing there. "Shit, you look fantastic. Twice as good as you looked this morning. God, why didn't I jump you then? Never mind, plenty of time for that."

He slides off Pike and Boyce's shoulders and lurches toward Leonard. There's a terrible moment when Leonard sees Jim's florid face coming toward him, and then his secondhand embarrassment turns to firsthand as Jim kisses him, on the lips, in the middle of the Cochrane Memorial Hall.

Before Leonard can detach himself, the Chief Protocol Officer bustles up.

"Captain Kirk?"

"Yes?" Jim manages to sound normal, even though he's still wrapped around Leonard like an anaconda.

"There've been--erm." She stutters, not sounding very diplomatic. "Changes in plans. The President of Al-Daraba may not be arriving for another hour. And as we've already taken up enough of your time this visit--"

"Oh, no. Nononono," Jim says, waving a finger at her like he's conducing an orchestra. "I insist. The President wants to meet me, so I'm staying right here. Wouldn't want to let her down. In fact, I have a story that I think she'd like to hear--" From Jim's chuckle, Leonard can tell what kind of story it is, and the Chief Protocol Officer probably can, too.

"That's very kind of you, Captain, but--" the diplomat, looking a bit desperate, catches someone's eye across the room. "But the Diplomatic Corps feels that we've taken up far too much of your valuable time during your very short leave. In fact, we--we're going to cancel our request that you appear at the five remaining events."

"Cancel? Really? Isn't that a shame." Leonard feels Jim's hand moving down his back and sincerely hopes it stops when it reaches his belt. "But I'm sure the Admiralty will be able to use all that free time."

"On the contrary." To Leonard's surprise, it's Admiral Subramanya speaking. "If the Diplomatic Corps feels so strongly about respecting your time off, I'm sure the least we can do is the same. For one of our own."

"Splendid," says the Chief Protocol Officer. "Enjoy your leave, Captain, wherever it is. I'm assuming it's not in San Francisco?"

"Nah," Kirk drawls. "Far away. Real far."

The Officer gives a sigh of relief. "Very good," she says, and hurries away.

Leonard waits for the three admirals to come down on Jim like a ton of bricks. Instead, all that happens is that Jim pats Leonard's ass--once--before Leonard swats his hand away. He meets Jim's eyes, intending to glare, and then he sees it.

"You son of a bitch, you're not drunk at all, are you?"

"I'm mostly not drunk," Jim says, keeping his hand on Leonard's back but north of the border. "I did have a shot of Jack on the way over, just to get in character."

"Then why on Earth--"

"Say what you will about Jim, you have to agree he has his priorities straight," Pike says, raising a glass in their direction. "You’re going to love the beaches in Fiji, boys. Crystal clear water.”

“Best enjoyed naked, of course.” Subramanya says. There’s a long pause.

“Well, you know what we always say,” Boyce says. “‘It’s not the journey but the destination.’”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Jim’s wandering hand has finally come to rest on Leonard’s hip. “The journey’s not so bad, either.”

The Hardest Science to Forget (Kirk/McCoy, R), part 2

2012-02-12T16:17:34Z

<<part 1

It’s 3 AM and I have a headache and I just want to go to back to bed, so of course Jim wants to talk. His breath smells like alcohol and artificial vanilla (cotton candy vodka, disgusting). He can’t shut up about how awesome the party was, and how I should have been there, though nothing would have stamped LOSER on my forehead faster than acting as a Brinks guard for my boyfriend at a house party for kids 10 years younger than me.

“You should have seen the way she looked at me when I said that.” His voice is slurred, 15 decibels too loud. “She has those big brown doll eyes, and they were like, wahhhh”--he pushes his own long lashes apart with his fingers, and Leonard seriously hopes he doesn’t stick one in his eye. “Fuck, I thought she was going to knee me in the groin but she just laughed. Her boyfriend, though--” Jim’s index finger roams around, trying to find the point of the story--”he looked like he wanted to choke me out. At least I think it was her boyfriend; she let him put his hand on her ass.”

“Then I guess everybody at the party was your boyfriend.” It’s mean, but damn it, I’m pissed: he should have let me know where he was, and he shouldn’t have driven; it’s completely irresponsible.

Jim pushes himself back up to sea level in his chair and squints at me. “What does that mean?”

“Just that I assume you followed your usual strategy for making friends in a room full of strangers.” His forehead is creasing, but something hard is rising up inside me, and I can’t stop it. “You said you were going to bring salsa, but it’s still in the fridge. That girl--did she get the special Jim Kirk party favor?”

“Excuse me, what?” He’s upright and looking directly at me. “Cut the cute metaphors and spit it out.”

Too late now to turn back; you said you were going to jump off that cliff, now do it. “I’m saying that I assume you fucked her, Jim. Isn’t that how you get people to like you?”

I’ve never seen eyes that blue and cold. Suddenly he’s dead sober and I have a feeling of oh, shit, like he might punch me even though he’s never done any such thing.

“Fine. Okay. Thanks for explaining that.” He’s pacing, back and forth, like he’s trying to gather escape velocity. “I’m glad that endless, fucking boring discussion about a negotiated, open relationship didn’t keep you from thinking I’m a slut. Because I’d hate to deny you that pleasure.”

“I wasn’t saying--”

“Yes, you were. God damn, you love your moral judgements, sitting there with your 1.75 ounces of Bourbon and your fucking Atlantic Monthly and knowing exactly what everybody should be doing with their lives.” He pulls his keys from his pocket, works the last one off the ring, and slaps it down on the side table. “Here. I won’t be needing this any more.” He grabs his backpack, the one he dropped on the floor when he came home 15 minutes ago and heads for the door.

“Jim, wait, I’m sorry, I--” I scramble after him, dodging furniture, but he’s already slipping away. The door opens and I chase him into the hall, but he evaporates like some insubstantial spirit. “Wait!”

I hear a dog bark out on the street, and it means goodbye.

+++++

“Can’t we just stay in and have brunch?” Through a crack in the curtains I can see brilliant November sky, but I’m still in my PJs and happy about it.

“Brunch? Could there be a bigger stereotype? If you make Bellinis, will Cher come over? God.” He twitches, like his clothes are itching him. “I need air; it smells like grandparents in here.” He knees my leg. “Farmer’s Market, now. Let’s go.”

He’s better in the sunshine with an iced coffee in his hand and a smile on his face.

“I love this neighborhood. We should buy a house here.”

“Sure. All we need to do is sell your comic book collection for $1.5 million.”

“I’m serious.” He whacks me on the shoulder, almost spilling my coffee. “It’s a great time to buy; the housing market is still fucked. I can’t contribute much to the down payment, but I’m great at fixing shit, so that’s sweat equity. I’m sick of apartments; mine has no hot water after 10 AM and the guy upstairs tap dances or something. I want a real house, with a lawn and squirrels and shit.”

I have no idea where this sudden domesticity is coming from, but it makes me nervous. I’ve been thinking about asking Jim to move into the condo, but it’s part of a bigger, better-thought-out but unbroached plan that includes supporting Jim while he goes back to school.

“Having a house is like having a kid--a big, demanding, expensive kid that springs a leak in its water heater on Christmas Day. You want to mow a lawn? Go work for a lawn care company.”

“Because that’s all I’m good for, right? And I’ve got a mental age of 12 so I don’t understand about mortgages and points and homeowners’ insurance.” The caffeinated words tumble out almost too fast to hear, and I know this is going nowhere good. “I have savings. They’re going to make me weekend manager at the shop and you know I could get a programming job any time I want, so fuck that shit. But maybe it’s not the money. Maybe it’s the moving in together. Is that your problem?”

“No, not at all.” I’m sweating, even though it’s barely 60 degrees out. “I want to do that, it’s just-- you get these ideas in your head, and you’re enthusiastic about them, but they don’t last. The programming thing? You haven’t touched your laptop except to check email in a month. You master things so quickly, it’s like you squeeze all the juice out and throw them away and move on to the next thing. A house--”

“Fuck a house,” he practically spits, eyes narrow and cold. “Fuck you, too, if you think I’m a pretty boy with the attention span of a flea who can’t function in the world. I was doing fine before I met you. I managed to pay bills and ride mass transit and everything. You know, maybe I should prove it.” His voice keeps rising, drawing stares. “Maybe I should dump you, right here at the Farmer’s Market. And then you can get some fucking organic milk for your fucking fair trade coffee and go right back to your fucking predictable life, minus the fucking.”

“Damn it, I don’t-- Jim, I never--” I give up trying to slip a word in between the narrow gaps in his rant, and put my hands up in surrender. Jim’s angry voice turns into shrieking, metallic background music for the swirling colors, pyramids of oranges and people in jackets and somewhere in there is Jim, but I can’t---

+++++

“How’s the Massaman curry?” It’s weird that Jim is asking; usually if he wants to know, he just grabs a bite off my plate. But tonight he’s listless, gassed out from work or from a long gym session. I know it can’t be sparkling conversation and sly glances every night, but it makes me feel bad, as if Jim feels obligated to sit here making small talk because I’m buying dinner.

“Not bad. I think I’m going to stick with the Pad King next time, though.”

“Good old, predictable Bones.” It’s one of his nicknames for me, something he got off a TV show. “You don’t like the curry, but you’re not going to ditch it and order what you want because it would be a waste, and because you’re stubborn. You don’t like the idea that you’ve ordered the same thing 30 times in a row at the same restaurant, so it’s worth eating something you don’t like every now and then to prove to yourself that you’re not entirely a creature of habit.”

“Am I really that bad?” It’s depressingly plausible. I stir the rice into the pool of sauce with my chopsticks and feel my appetite leech away. “No wonder we have nothing to talk about.”

“Oh, there’s plenty, but you won’t talk about it.” He leans back and tucks his hands in his armpits, looking engaged for the first time that night. “Your father’s illness. Your divorce. Why you won’t get on an airplane. And yet, I know in excruciating detail why the 1959 Rebels were the best Ole Miss team ever.”

“I don’t hide things from you, damn it,” I say, inadvertently (okay, maybe on purpose) implying that he does. “Those things just aren’t interesting.”

“They are to me.”

Before I can reply, a young, dark-haired man appears beside the table.

“Jim. I am sorry to interrupt your dinner, but I wished to thank you for that book recommendation.” He’s a nice-looking kid in a nerdy kind of way, wearing a sweater that’s heavy for the season and a wool watch cap pulled down down low on his head. “I found the subject matter engaging.”

“Sure, no problem.” There’s a pause during which Jim does not introduce me. “Well, enjoy your dinner. I recommend the Massaman curry.”

“Thank you.” He inclines his head like a benediction. “I hope you and Bones enjoy your evening as well.”

“Who is that?” I hiss, as soon as he’s gone. “And how did he know you call me ‘Bones’?”

“Dunno. Some guy from the bike shop. Or the gym, I’m not sure. Don’t worry about it.”

And I really don’t have anything to worry about: not the curry, which is vanishing from my plate, or the restaurant, which is vanishing as well. I look at Jim in alarm but his face is vanishing, too, turned pink and blank as if with a pencil eraser. I seem to be the only thing that isn’t melting away, but I grab onto my own arms just to be sure.

“Bones!”

Jim’s voice is a red-shifted echo, as if he’s been blasted to the stars.

“Jim!”

I remember now. I remember, I remember. The Ji Yi Institute and the cramped office, and against all probability it’s working. That black-haired bastard is taking Jim away from me.

“Stop! I don’t want to do this any more! I want to stop! Keep the money, I don’t care--”

It’s like shouting into the wind, into a howling void that’s pulling everything away and leaving only me behind.

+++++

“Good morning.”

Leonard opens his eyes to find Jim’s face a few inches away, bathed in caramel-colored light. He’s pulled the sheet over their heads, but he must have opened the curtains first, because Leonard likes to sleep in the pitch dark.

“Hey.” Leonard’s voice is morning-raspy; Jim dehydrated him pretty thoroughly the night before.

“Hey yourself,” Jim says. He puts a hand on Leonard’s hipbone, warm and firm, and then gives it a little shake, trying to get Leonard’s drowsy attention. “Question for you: If I could pull back this sheet, and we could be anywhere in the world, where would you want us to be?”

Leonard suspects where this is going. Jim has gotten it into his head to try big-wave surfing, which would involve two things Leonard hates, apocalyptic waves and flying in airplanes. Leonard’s suggestion of Cocoa Beach or waiting for a hurricane has gotten the Fuck me but you’re old and boring eye roll.

“Where would I want to be? Let me see.” Leonard draws it out, because now Jim’s hand is stroking his hip, and Jim is beautiful, face as innocent as a kid at a sleepover. “Anywhere in the world? Okay, I know. I want to be here, right now. This is the place I want to be.”

Jim lights up like the Fourth of July. He loves praise, but not for anything that comes easily to him--his looks or his athleticism or the way machines swoon into obedience in his hands. He loves to make Leonard happy, and Leonard loves him back for it, because selflessness isn’t a natural habit for either one of them.

“You know the best part?” Jim says after a while, hand making a beeline for Leonard’s groin. “No sharks.”

+++++

“I received your text message,” Spock says, pointing at his phone that way he does, as if he disbelieves that technology is going to work. “Your request was urgent. May I aid you in any way?”

Jim isn’t distressed, he’s half frantic, crawling out of his skin with a need to be anywhere other than here. No, somewhere specific. “Sorry to bug you at work, I just--” He rubs his own arms briskly, trying to get rid of the feeling of wrong wrong wrong. “I feel like I’m falling apart. I mean literally, like pieces of me are flaking off. I don’t want to be alone, and I don’t want to be here. Let’s go to Greensboro. No! Let’s go to Tybee Island.”

“A fine suggestion,” Spock says, with that voice like velvet sandpaper. He’s so unflappable, so calmingly measured in his response to everything, letting Jim be as emotional as he wants. “I believe I have no obligations next weekend.”

“No, now. Let’s go now. I really need to lie on a quilt on the beach and look at the stars.”

Spock tilts his head, considering, as if it’s no less irrational than any of Jim’s impulsive suggestions. “Very well. If you think it will alleviate your distress.”

Hours later he’s lying on Bones' grandmother’s quilt, cooling sand firm and supportive under his aching back. It’s alright now, though; Bones has his hand wrapped around Jim’s, and he can feel that it’s beautiful. Everything about Bones is beautiful.

“I’m happy,” Bones whispers. There’s no one to hear, but Jim understands; the quiet is church-like, just wind and surf and the occasional creaking of palm leaves. “I’m so happy. If I died right now, I’d be completely satisfied with my life.”

It brings tears to Jim’s eyes, because even though he’s known Bones for less than a day, he can tell that this is a profound admission, that Bones lives his life in judgement and expectation. Jim is proud he can give that to Bones, and hopeful about what it means for their relationship. Just once, he’d like to leave somebody better than he found them. Or maybe not leave at all.

A wave crashes on the shore, and it’s followed by silence. Complete silence, and the sand is spilling away beneath them

“No!” Bones shouts, and clutches tight at Jim’s hand. “Not this one!”

“What is it? What’s going on?” The quilt under Jim starts bucking like a mule.

Bones looks around in horror at the scenery, disappearing as if a giant child were putting away its play set. “It’s Spock. I hired him to take away my memories of you, but I don’t want to give up this one. We have to do something. We have to hide you.”

“Where?” In a few moments there’ll be nowhere left to hide.

“I don’t know. He’s seen all my memories of you, if this is the last one, the first one--”

“Then take me somewhere where I’ve never been. Some time. The past.” Jim tries to keep his voice calm in order to not freak out Bones, but he can feel himself being ripped inexorably away. He keeps a death grip around Bones’ wrist. “Think of some other time. Do it now.”

“Okay, okay.” Bones’ hair has fallen into his face and he’s shaking, but his attention turns inward.

A moment later, it begins to rain.

“Is this--” Jim begins.

“Shut up,” Bones whispers fiercely. “Let me concentrate.”

A second later Jim crashes through a door and he’s in a large kitchen, all cherry wood and mirror-black surfaces. He pulls the collar of his wet jacket down from where it’s been keeping his head dry. The kitchen is warm and smells great, and the island in the middle is covered with platters of fancy snacks.

“Hey, it worked,” he says, and makes a grab for something wrapped in bacon.

Bones smacks his hand away. “Don’t. My mom will notice.”

Jim starts to scowl, but then gets a good look at Bones. “Holy shit! Look at you--you’re fucking adorable. The khakis and the floppy hair--you’re like a GAP commercial come to life!”

“I remember this evening,” Bones says, though Jim is having a hard time concentrating on anything but his beestung lips. “My parents were having a party and they gave me $20 to help with the dishes and stuff. Jocelyn came over to talk me into going to the mall. She borrowed her brother’s car, even though she only had her learner’s permit.”

“Oh, a bad girl--I like her already. Who am I supposed to be?”

“You’re my friend Tyler. We’re on the squash team together, and you came over to keep me company.”

Jim looks down at his left pec. “Then why am I wearing a bowling shirt that says ‘Bogdan’?”

“You got it at a vintage store. It’s your favorite thing.”

“Are we dating? Because I really, really want to make out with you right now.”

“Well, we-- a few times, but-- Jocelyn. Jocelyn and I are kind of pre-engaged, I guess. We’re leaving for college this fall.” Leonard keeps his eyes on the swinging door to the kitchen; the sounds of adult revelry--clinking glasses and baritone laughter--are making him nervous.

Jim is doing his usual no-personal-boundaries inspection of a new place, peering into the built-in fridge, running a finger over the granite countertop.

“This kitchen is bigger than my apartment. You never mentioned your family was rich.”

“They’re not, not really. Not compared to some of the kids I go to school with. Tyler’s getting a Corvette for graduation.”

“I hope it gets him laid, because the shirt ain’t working.”

There’s a tap on the door, and before Leonard can stop him, Jim’s gone to let in Jocelyn, and there are the two most important people he’s ever let into his life, standing face to face.

Jocelyn is wearing black leggings under a long, belted shirt and her brother’s leather jacket, which means he’s probably already passed out in his room from drinking coconut rum. Her long chestnut hair hangs on either side of her face, defiantly glossy in spite of the worst assaults of temporary hair dye. Her face is pale and serious and thinks that she’s still growing into her nose, which, to Leonard’s eyes, is perfect.

“Hi,” she says, giving Leonard a twitch of a smile, and then turns to Jim. “What are you doing here?”

“Just hanging out.” The bastard strikes a pose, presumably so his stone-washed jeans will show his package to best advantage. “You look hot, Jocelyn.”

Jocelyn shoots him a look of withering disdain. “Len and I are going to the mall. Tricia’s working at Swiss Pretzels and the 27 toppings are starting to talk to her. I’m bringing her the Holy Mixtape of Antioch to cheer her up.” Leonard knows it well; it’s a bit Chili Peppers heavy (Leonard isn’t a fan) but otherwise solid. “Let’s go, before my brother wakes up and thinks about calling over here.”

“I can’t,” Leonard says, trying to ignore the fact that Jim is looking at Jocelyn like a cartoon character at a roast chicken. “My folks are paying me to pick up dirty glasses and stuff. My dad will be super pissed if I leave.”

Jocelyn gives an existential shrug. “I can’t fix your daddy issues for you, Len. Work it out. I’ll wait in the car for 10 minutes, and then I’m out of here.” She turns on a chunky boot heel and exits.

“Oh my God,” Jim says, breathless. “She amazing. No wonder you’re so fucked up. How did you screw the pooch on that?”

“I realized I was gay, you idiot.” Leonard realizes he’s half-shouting and looks at the swinging door in panic, but no adults come rushing through with butterfly nets.

“Oh, right. Did you ever go through a bi phase? Because Jocelyn’s got a car, and we--”

“No,” Leonard says, whacking him on the shoulder, because his lust for Leonard’s not-yet-wife is deeply disturbing. “We have to stay, because I didn’t go with Jocelyn that night. I don’t want to mess anything up.”

“This is your brain, Len, not a sci fi movie. We can do whatever we want.”

“Maybe you can, because it’s not your memory.” Just then the swinging door cracks open and the smoke-roughened voice of Leonard’s mother yells, “Leonard! Put the brie in the oven, will you?”

Leonard grabs a tray and starts to comply, but it turns to water in his hands. It’s all winking out: the skewered scallops and the bruschetta and the wheel of brie. Leonard grabs onto Jim in sudden panic, afraid he’ll wink out too.

“He found us! Now where do we go?”

“I don’t know, I--oww not so hard. How about--ummm...”

“Now, Jim!”

“How about an embarrassing memory? Something he won’t think you’d want me to see.”

Oh, wonderful. Leonard has plenty of those. “Okay, give me a minute.”

It’s late at night and Leonard is in his father’s study, sitting at his desk, bathed in the pale blue glow from his father’s beloved Apple computer. Leonard’s allowed to use it for homework and nothing else, as his mother has learned from her friends at the raquet club that The Internet is Bad.

“A Power Mac? Are you shitting me?” says Jim at his shoulder. “Sweeet. Can we take it back with us?”

Leonard doesn’t answer, because he’s feeling sweaty and itchy in his flannel pajamas, all too aware of what’s going on on the screen.

The image fills in line by excruciating line: First, gelled dark hair, and then limpid brown eyes and slightly parted lips with a hint of tongue visible.

“Oh, awesome,” Jim whispers.

Next comes the beefy torso with a tiny tank top hiked up to reveal chiseled abs, brown and shiny as a Thanksgiving turkey. Finally--accompanied by frenzied flashing of Dr. McCoy’s 28.8 modem--approximately seven inches of purpleish erection, clutched like a stick shift.

“It’s porn!” Jim crows in delight. “Low-res gay porn! You were a pioneer, man!” He tries to give Leonard a fist bump.

Leonard can’t respond because of what his own hand is doing. He wants to stop; he’s mortified both inside the memory and out, but he can’t stop now any more than he could then, fueled by hormones and craven need, so humiliating but so good in its own way, the shame salty-sweet like the sweat beginning to drip down his face--

“Sorry,” Jim says, lowering his voice and stifling a snicker. “But if this is your idea of embarrassment--I mean, everybody--”

At that precise moment, Dr. McCoy the Elder pushes open his study door, having come downstairs to get a shot of brandy to “settle his stomach” and glimpsed the pale, blue light under the door.

“Len? Are you on the computer ag--” Dr. McCoy freezes, trying to take in the sight of his honor student son jerking off to gay porn in the chair where he does his taxes.

“Oh,” Dr. McCoy says faintly, raising a hand to shield his eyes, as if the porn is a fiery sun. “Well, don’t stay up too late, you have school tomorrow.”

The door closes, and Jim--who’s been holding his breath the whole time--collapses with laughter.

“Shit,” he gasps, “you poor, poor kid. What did he do to you the next day?”

“Nothing. I think he probably erased it from his memory.” Leonard’s retrospective boner is, of course, down for the count. “Not literally, of course.”

“Of course not; that’s impossible.” Jim wipes his eyes and Leonard starts to relax, just in time for the room to smear around him into the by now familiar swirl of incipient nothingness. The Power Mac pops out of existence.

“What now?” Leonard begs, clutching at Jim. “Where to next?”

“I don’t know. I think we’re fucked.” Already, Jim’s voice sounds far away.

+++++

They’re back on the beach now, and it’s late at night. The palms sway eerie and black against the star-dotted sky. They’re walking, hand in hand, and Jim decides he wants to check out one of the fancy beach homes. It’s accessible by a long, wooden walkway that protects the dunes from their feet.

“I like this,” Jim says, looking at the white facade. “It’s traditional but it’s not all cutesy steamboats-and-pecan-pie. I love the porches. If this were my house I’d sleep on the porch every night if the weather was decent.” He tugs on Leonard’s hand. “C’mon, let’s go in.”

“What do you mean, go in?”

“Into the house.” Before Leonard can stop him, Jim’s peering in through the glass that frames the from door. “It’s okay, nobody’s home. And there’s no alarm. That I can see.”

“Jim, don’t--” Leonard sounds whiny to his own ears. “C’mon, this isn’t my idea of fun.” Leonard’s got a decent moral compass but also a teenaged fear of doing wrong and getting caught.

Jim takes his peevishness kindly. “We wouldn’t have been caught, you know. The owners were probably hundreds of miles away; their neighbors, too. Don’t you want to see what would have happened, if we’d gone in?”

Leonard understands; it may be their last chance. “Yeah, I guess. Okay.”

Jim rifles in his backpack and pulls out a multitool with which he makes short work of the lock. Even now, Leonard mostly doesn’t want to know where he got that skill.

The door opens with a click and Jim waves him in, ceremonious. The outside floodlights are just enough for Leonard to make out oceans of white carpet, sofas littered with plump pillows, sleek surfaces of glass and granite.

“Not bad,” Jim says. “How do you like our house, Len?”

“It isn’t ours,” Leonard starts to say, but Jim shakes his head.

“It’s ours for tonight. Next stop: liquor cabinet.”

“Don’t--” Too late, of course. Jim’s found it with the speed of a bloodhound and is pouring the each a couple of fingers of single-malt Scotch.

“Sit down,” he says. “Relax. Or aren’t you physically capable of it?”

“I want to,” Leonard says. “I want to live in the moment like you do. But I’m not you. My mind always injects the worst possible scenario: there’s a silent alarm and the police are on their way. The plane will crash on our way to the exotic island. I’ll lose my job because you wanted to give me a hummer in the exam room.”

Jim leans forward, elbows on knees, looking hopelessly at home in a stylish, overstuffed chair that isn’t his. Leonard wishes with all his heart that he could give Jim everything he deserves--a beautiful home and world travel and adventurous sex every moment of the day.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t help you,” Jim says. “I don’t have any answers. I’m not some force of nature sent to blast you out of your humdrum existence. I can’t use magic, liberating sex to make you love and accept yourself. I’m just a guy with a lot of baggage, like you, trying to figure out how I’m going to get out of bed tomorrow morning.”

Leonard can’t make Jim happy, either. He can’t even hang on to this. Already, the walls are shaking, as if buffeted by hurricane winds.

“God damn it,” he says, and feels like crying.

“It’s okay.” Jim reaches out to stroke his face. “Everything comes to an end, sooner or later.” A huge crack forms in the wall behind him, and a window blows out.

“Well, aren’t just a ray of sunshine?” He catches Jim’s hand and holds it. “Would things have been any different? If I’d broken into the house with you?”

“Yes. No. Maybe.” He smiles at Leonard--such a beautiful smile. “I don’t know. But it would have been fun.” Chunks are falling off the house now; the porch that Jim admired crashes silently to the sand.

“What are we going to do, Jim? I don’t want to lose you.”

The ground under Leonard trembles and flies apart, atoms winking out. A voice, almost too faint to hear, says, “Meet me in Greensboro--”

+++++

Valentine’s Day is a miserable excuse for a holiday, and nothing is worse than spending it visibly alone. Dr. M’Benga’s day-long electronic medical records extravaganza--while both salutary and boring--is also the perfect opportunity for everyone who knows me casually to ask if I have Plans. I do not have Plans, unless you count getting buzzed and greasy on a six-pack of Georgia Brown and a pound of teriyaki wings.

However, there’s no avoiding it. Telling myself that gets me as far as the on-ramp to I-75, at which point I decide to go north, not south, and end up in the Ocalee National Forest, getting stares from day hikers who wonder why I’m wearing a blazer and dress slacks.

I’m hungry, but I’ve used up my store of adventure for the day, so I go to a Waffle House and drink black coffee until my nerves are tuned like a grand piano, until I can feel rather see than see the pretty blond boy with the backpack decide to envelop me in his sphere of chaos.

He drags me off to Tybee Island, and we spend a mostly platonic night dozing and talking about the sports we played as kids, our favorite board games. When dawn comes, it isn’t a golden revelatory spectacle, it’s hazy and gray. I try to be a gentleman and drop him at home, and he somehow ends up at my place instead.

Everything fades to gray and two weeks later, we’re sitting on my couch eating fish tacos from Rubio’s.

“These aren’t bad,” I say, not caring that my mouth is full, “but the fish is a little dry. They should really marinade it first so it can hold up to the grilling. There’s this place--”

“--In Panama City,” Jim says, without missing a beat. “Yeah, I know; you talk about it all the fucking time. You get these things into your head and you’re like a dog with a bone. You’d rather bitch about how they could be perfect instead of--” he grinds to a halt, and then starts waving his hands like he’s fanning away moths. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. This just feels weird. I feel like I know everything you’re going to say and do but not in, like, a good way. It’s like you’re my brother or something. I mean, I’d love to go surfing in California, but if I suggest it, you’re going to say--”

“That there’s perfectly good surfing in Florida, and the California breaks are too crowded?”

“Exactly.” He looks so disconsolate that I feel bad for him, until I reflect that I’m the one being dumped. “I’m sorry,” he says again, and though I’m usually the first one to assign blame, I can’t think of one thing he did wrong. “This isn’t working for me.”

“It’s okay,” I say, taking a deep, resigned breath of it’s for the best. “At least stay and eat your tacos. They’re actually pretty good.”

+++++

Jim’s absence is a pain and a relief. I do some trail running, and I work, and I hang out with Janice and Christine. Christine is trying to convince their landlord to let her raise chickens in the backyard. Janice has already picked out the names.

I come home from work one evening and find a cream-colored, official-looking letter with my name handwritten on the front. Long experience with lawyers makes me open it with trepidation. It says:

Dear Dr. McCoy,

According to our records, you have received treatment at the Ji Yi Institute. Please be informed that these treatments were not approved by the governing body of the VSA and may have unexpected consequences. Please contact our office for information on reparative therapy and a refund of the $2000 which our records show you paid.

I’ve got no idea what the Ji Yi Institute or the VSA are, but as it happens, I am missing $2000 that was mysteriously transferred out of my bank account a few weeks ago (I know what people think about doctors’ salaries, but I noticed).

I’m still reading over the letter trying to figure out what the hell it means when my cell rings. It’s Jim.

“Heeey. Um, I’m sorry if this is weird, but--did you receive a letter from something called the Ji Yi Institute?”

“I’m looking at it right now.”

A pause. “Do you have any idea what it’s about? Do you think it’s a scam?”

“I have no idea. Do you want to check it out?”

“Yeah, I think we should.”

I call the number in the letter to set up an appointment, and two days later Jim and I, in awkward alliance, are standing in from of a squat brick building on Tidewater Avenue. There’s no sign, just a sticky spot where one might recently have been.

The man who greets us has a long, angular face like a Roman senator. He’s wearing a pale gray tunic and an incongruous black Fedora.

“Please come in,” he says, not introducing himself.

The spiel that follows is as unbelievable as it is strangely familiar. Apparently, Jim and I both decided to pay some huckster $2000 to erase our memories of each other, and it worked. Or mostly worked, which would explain why I spent our very brief relationship feeling like Jim was responsible for the red wine stain on my sofa, even though it’s been there for more than a year.

“Your memories were transferred to me,” says the long-faced man, “though I assure you I have not attempted to access them. I can transfer them back to you, or you may remain as you are. It is unlikely that there is any physical damage.” He hands us each an envelope. “Here is your currency.” I’d dearly love to know who he is, why he talks like a Victorian schoolmaster, and how any of this even possible. But I notice that Jim is looking a bit pale and unusually serious.

“Can we each get back our own memories?” he says.

“I fear not,” the man says. “They are too deeply entwined. You will receive your joint memories, as well as individual memories concerning each other.”

There’s a long pause during which I assume Jim is trying to figure out the worst thing he could possibly have said about me or done to me in the past year, because I’m sure as hell doing it myself.

“Okay,” Jim says finally. “I’ll do it. How bad can it be?”

He’s never been divorced, so he has no idea. But it seems unfair to burden him alone, plus I confess I’m curious as hell.

“What the hey, I’m in, too.”

The long-faced man nods and extends a hand to each of us. “Please place your hands on mine.” It seems ridiculously simple, like a Pull my finger joke, but he’s clearly not the type.

Reality gives an uneasy lurch, and then my memories and Jim’s are spooling across my inner eyes like a DVR on fast forward.

….Leonard is having lunch with Christine in the staff dining room at the hospital. “He spent the entire weekend trying to restring a guitar he got off Freecycle, but when I asked him to fix the shower head, he was ‘too busy.’ He could have pulled extra shifts at the shop and bought a guitar in the time he spent, but God forbid I should mention it, because then I’m a stuffy old man who’s angry at life and sabotaging his creativity and Lord knows what all. But he’s got so much potential--isn’t it a compliment that I think he’s capable of so much more than he’s doing?”...

“….He has this beautiful flat-screen TV, but he only watches science shows and House.” Jim is lying on his back and trying to loosen a balky derailleur while talking to his co-worker Blake. “And he only watches that because it pisses him off. He doesn’t shut up the whole time, just rants about how implausible everything is and how a real doctor like that would lose his license and how if the residents were really that stupid there’d be patients dying left and right....”

….“And the minute I say anything, it’s like I’ve grown horns and turned into his parents. Who I know nothing about, by the way, because he refuses to talk about them. I want to be his boyfriend and not his father, but somebody has to be the responsible party, and he makes damn sure it’s always me, and then he resents the hell out of me for it. Especially if I point out that building a giant octopus out of LEGO does not pay the cable bill....”

“….He doesn’t realize that except for the limp, he is House. Everyone else at the hospital is a lazy shit-for-brains who couldn’t diagnose their way out of a paper bag except him. It’s no wonder he doesn’t have any friends at work except for this one nurse who must have the patience of a saint. Does it sound like the guy I’m talking about is over 60? Because he’s still in his early 30s. I think he was born 45. Maybe he’s aging backward....”

When I open my eyes, the long-faced man is gone, perhaps to save us embarrassment. I flick a quick glance at Jim, unable to meet his eyes, and see that his pale face is sunburn pink. I feel bad for the long-faced man; what a terrible curse it would be to always know what other people are thinking about you, especially those you love.

“I’m sorry,” Jim mumbles, staring at his hands. “I didn’t realize I’m so annoying. No wonder I drive you crazy.”

“You don’t. A lot of things do, but you’re not even in the Top 10.” That gets him to at least look at me. “Why would you? You’re damn near perfect.”

“It wouldn’t change, you know,” he says, as if we’ve been having a long, well-reasoned argument. “If we got back together. I’m probably not going to go back to school, and I’ll keep jumping around from thing to thing and coming over to your place to watch TV because I forgot to pay the cable bill. And you’ll stay in your little bubble and bitch about how I and everybody else is failing to live up to your expectations, even though you stick with what you’re already good at and don’t push your boundaries.”

“Okay,” I say.

“What?”

“Okay. That’s okay.” And it really is.

“Okay,” he says back to me, and breaks into a grin. For once in my life, it’s seems I’ve surprised him.

+++++

On the beach at Tybee Island, a near-gale is blowing, rain coming from every direction like tiny bullets. Even the seagulls have packed it in; they’re on the shore with their wings folded tight, and there’s not a human to be seen except Jim. His jacket’s unzipped and his hair is plastered to his head, and I should really yell at him to keep his clothes dry, but I don’t.

Jim is laughing, and that’s all that matters.

+++++

Note: The title is ganked from the same poem as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: Alexander Pope’s “Eloisa to Abelard.”

Of all affliction taught a lover yet,
'Tis sure the hardest science to forget!
How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense,
And love th' offender, yet detest th' offence?

Here’s a suggestion, Eloisa: don’t try.

The Hardest Science to Forget (Kirk/McCoy, R), part 1

2012-02-12T16:03:00Z

Summary: Written for the Reel Love Challenge at jim_and_bones. Modern AU inspired by (i.e., largely ripped off from) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: Jim and Leonard meet, date, argue, and then independently go through a memory-wiping procedure to forget each other. It works as well as you'd expect.

Pairings: Kirk/McCoy, minor Chapel/Rand, even more minor Leonard/Jocelyn

Warnings: Language, boys arguing, mind/memory manipulation.

Tremendous thanks for beta reading to the adorable and perspicacious caitri, Keeper of Bones's Snark. Also thanks to norfolkdumpling for the delightful banner!

Valentine’s Day was invented by people in relationships to make the rest of us feel like crap.

It’s not enough that they have love; the smug bastards need a national campaign to rub it in our faces. And there’s not a shred of honesty about it, because if you said “love is digging a splinter out of someone’s dirty heel even though the thought of hurting them makes your flesh crawl,” the poor bastards wouldn’t know what to make of it. So it’s either infantilized bullshit with chubby pink cupids crapping rainbows, or clichéd “romance” purchased with a credit card: a dozen mutant roses from the gas station, red satin underwear made by underpaid children, Double Suicide by Chocolate served with two forks by candlelight at your local snotty bistro.

You know what an honest Valentine’s Day card would look like?

Thank You, My Darling, for Fucking Me in the Mornings When My Breath is Bad
This Valentine’s Day, I got you something special: an extra hour of sleep while I try to calm our screaming infant
To My Sweetheart: You’re the Person Who Will Give a Shit When I Die

...but that’ll never happen, because it wouldn’t make the lonely people weep into pints of ice cream and buy tickets to movies about adorably awkward young people finding love in Manhattan. The funny thing is, it would work on me, but then I’m different: I’ve been there before.

And so this Valentine’s Day starts with an email from Jocelyn. Just seeing her name--her new, not-married-to-me name--pop up on my phone makes my heart pound.

Len--

Hope you’re well. I got a call from St. Bridget’s saying they need another $500 for student activity fees. I thought you had it covered but I guess there was some confusion. It needs to be paid by Wednesday so Jo can go on a field trip. Can you call them today and straighten it out?

Thanks,

Joss

P.S. Happy Valentine’s Day. I hope you’re spending it with someone. Just don’t sit home and drink, because thinking about that makes me sad.

That’s an arrow to the heart, alright, and there will be no raspberry truffles to staunch the bleeding. Instead, my day looks like this:

Staff Physician Training Agenda - February 14

8:00 Continental Breakfast
8:30 Welcoming remarks from Dr. M’Benga
9:00 Overview of Electronic Medical Records Initiative at Piedmont Hospital
….
5:00 Closing remarks from Dr. M’Benga

I could handle a day at the hospital, up to my chin in other people’s disasters. But this? Flowcharts. Cold cut buffets. PowerPoint.

I wouldn’t be much of a doctor if I couldn’t fake a sick day, would I?

One-handed, I type out an apologetic message to Dr. M’Benga, leaving out the capital letters so I’ll seem extra unwell. I get off at the next exit and head in the opposite direction, and just keep going--past the outer suburbs, past the small perimeter towns, and finally to the Ocalee National Forest. I yank off my tie but keep the blazer, since the morning mist is a little cool. It’s not really hiking, but I wander the morning away, birds cocking their heads at the strange man in the middle of the woods in a navy blazer and loafers. Two squirrels chase each other around an around a tree.

“You’re better off not catching her,” I say to squirrel #2. He ignores me. Thirty seconds of frantic squirrel sex follow, and then squirrel #1 wriggles away and runs off. I look around for the squirrel lawyer.

Another hour and I’m in a Waffle House outside of Greensboro, sucking back coffee as if it could clear my head and pushing around a cold pecan waffle with my fork. It’s between breakfast and lunch and so the place is mostly empty, just a few retirees and people who have nowhere else to be--people like me, I guess.

And that guy.

He sticks out like a sore thumb because he’s trying so hard not to look as pretty as he is. He’s got messy blond hair, pink lips, radiation-blue eyes, and an ugly plaid shirt open over a graying T-shirt. He’s sitting sideways in the booth, feet in ratty Chuck Taylors dangling over the edge of the seat, but nothing about him says hipster or college kid or delinquent or anything else. He looks like nobody but himself. He’s vibrating with energy, eyes darting around the room, until, with the randomness of an atomic collision, they hit mine.

He doesn’t do the lookaway like a straight guy would, but he doesn’t give me the cruisey stare, either. Instead he blinks at me, direct and curious, and the corners of his mouth quirk up, hopeful. An angler, and I’m a fat trout in shallow water. I tilt my head down with purpose and keep reading the New York Times in five-word segments on my phone.

After a few minutes, I chance a look up. He’s moved two booths closer. I give an involuntary shiver and clutch the phone more tightly.

“Hi.”

He’s popped up over the neighboring booth, both hands wrapped over the back of a seat like a Kilroy cartoon.

“Uh, hi.” I give him a weak smile and immediately hate myself.

Beg me for money, I think. Ask me for drugs. Just don’t--

“Do you mind if I sit there?” He points to the seat opposite mine.

“Knock yourself out.”

He slides in with the music of jeans on vinyl and sits there, vibrating, apparently waiting for me to entertain him. I cast around, desperate; I am not an entertaining guy. He leans forward and the rolled cuff of his shirt slides up, revealing a tattoo on his wrist, a stylized sun.

“Nice tat,” I say. And it is nice, as much as pigment trapped in fibroblasts by an immune reaction can be.

“Thanks.” He brushes it with his fingers like it’s still fresh and sore. “You hate tattoos, don’t you? You don’t get why somebody would take weird art they’d never have on their wall and put it on their body. You probably think the human body is enough of an art work, right?” I don’t know how he knows that, but I can’t disagree. “It’s not about art. Tattoos are like instant personality. Whatever you want to do--piss off your parents, make lovers think you’re dangerous and sexy, get strangers to talk to you about philosophy and life--you can get that in a tattoo. And then there’s the pain. Most people won’t say it but they get off on the fact that you’re willing to suffer for something that’s meaningful to you. Even though it’s a non-sexy procedure, just buzzing and wincing. Like the dentist. By the way, I’m Jim.”

I stare at the hand he’s reached out to me while my neurons try to catch up. After a few stupid seconds I grip it. It’s large and dry and warm.

“I’m Len.”

“Len. Is that short for Lennox? Cool name. Are you going to eat that waffle?”

“No, but it’s cold and disgusting.” He immediately yanks the plate toward him, grabs my fork, and glugs half a cup of syrup on it. “What the hell are you, a hummingbird?” It crosses my mind that he’s on something, but his hands are steady, his pupils aren’t dilated, and his color is good. Really good.

“I have a fast metabolism.” The waffle disappears, washed down with some of my coffee, leaving his full lips shiny and sticky. Worse and worse. “Do you have a car, Len?”

“In general? Yes,” I say, sensing danger in the question.

“Great! Let’s go to Tybee Island. I love the beach in the off season. But the slacks won’t cut it. Do you have shorts with you?”

“What, you want to go now? It’s a three-and-a-half hour drive, at least.”

The blue eyes regard me with the same unsugarcoated kindness as my therapist. “You got anything better to do?”

I think that the answer is “no,” and that I have a gym bag in my car, with shorts and a T-shirt and a towel.

“I can kick in for gas,” Jim says, grabbing his backpack and slapping a couple of bucks on the table for a tip. His butt’s already half off the seat, a bird about to fly, with or without me. “C’mon. Are we going to do this thing?”

No, the answer should be. No no no no.

“Yes.”

By late afternoon we’re lying on a quilt on the nearly deserted beach, on white sand made damp and clean by the receding tide. The quilt is from my bed, a factory-made simulacrum of the priceless one my grandmother gave to Joss on our wedding day. It’s been in my trunk for a month waiting to be dry cleaned, and now it’s well and truly trashed. I couldn’t be happier.

“Do you want another mochalattawhatever?” Jim rattles the ice in his empty cup like a maraca. He needs regular infusions of sugar and caffeine or he gases out.

“How about some real food?” I say, and he nods enthusiastically. I reach for my wallet, but Jim waves me off and comes back a half hour later laden with grouper and sweet potato fries and pie, and won’t even let me pay my share. Maybe Jim doesn’t pay for it either; maybe he just gives that expectant half-smile that makes you want to do anything to please him, and people just hand over the goods.

We watch a pink, clear sunset together, and eleven hours later we see an equally pearly sunrise. Yes, we spend the night on the beach, occasionally dozing but mostly talking. Somehow I never ask Jim where he’s from, or where he lives, or what he does--we’re too busy talking about the important stuff, like what’s the most overrated movie in history, pirates vs. ninjas (who would win?), what chances of dying you’d accept to go into space. My answer to that is easy.

“None. Space is like football--you can see everything better on TV.”

“Seriously?” Jim cranes his head around to stare at me. “I’d do it no matter what the risk. Best case, you’re a fucking astronaut; you get to be somewhere other than Earth. Can you even imagine that? Your friends would say, ‘Where’s Jim? Oh, right, he’s not on the planet right now.’ Not on the planet. And if you die, you’re famous--memorials and a eulogy from the president and shit. It’s a no-lose situation.”

I look up at the stars and think that they might as well be Christmas lights. I’m just fine right here.

He takes my hand; his own already feels as familiar to me as an old glove. “What are you thinking?” he says, and it doesn’t sound like a cliché. It sounds like he really wants to know.

“That I’m happy. Really happy.” I mean it. I don’t if I’ve known I was definitely, positively happy since I was a kid, but I know it now.

“Good,” he says, and gives my hand a squeeze. “That’s good.”

Under the kind regard of a slowly warming day, we brush the sand out of our clothes, grab breakfast, and hit the road. It’s lucky it’s Saturday or I’d be out of a job and unable to care. Yes, I’m that far gone already: I know the symptoms, which include being happy about the fact that I’m at a truck stop outside of Savannah, filling the car and getting ready for a long drive on two hours sleep while the guy who did this to me snores in the passenger seat.

Just before Macon, I nudge him. His chin’s deep in his chest and his uncombed hair is, objectively speaking, adorable.

“Hey, where do you live?”

He hugs his arms around himself and frowns, slides a pink tongue out to wet his salt-dried lips. “Inman Park. But is it okay if I sleep at your place? I think I’m having caffeine withdrawal. And since you’re a doctor--”

My answering growl doesn’t even convince myself. I’m done, I’m toast, I’m crispy on both sides. Somewhere above the fluffy clouds, Cupid’s project manager is looking at a task called Get Leonard McCoy to fall in love with a hyperactive drifter and marking it Complete.

+++++

“So, Len, do you and Jim have any ‘special plans’ for Valentine’s Day?” Lee’s eyebrows make the air quotes for her.

Lee Inouye is my immediate superior, but that doesn’t give her any right to pry into my love life. She’s only met Jim a handful of times when he’s materialized at happy hours and holiday parties, and she can’t shut up about what a handsome couple we are, and how happy we look, and how second time’s the charm. It’s like she’s personally invested in my relationship, like if anything went wrong kittens would cry and romance would die out in the world.

Which is unfortunate, because I haven’t talked to Jim in five days.

“Oh, you know, nothing special,” I say, slopping burnt coffee into my mug. It’s going to be hell on my stomach, but I haven’t been sleeping and I need the boost. “Dinner. A movie, maybe.”

“Hope you’ve made a reservation,” she says, adding with a wink, “or maybe you’re just as happy staying in.”

I give her a weak smile and dump two big spoons into the coffee. Two hours later my shift’s over and I bolt out of the hospital still jittery, and not just from the caffeine.

I grip the wheel like my hands have to wrestle control of it away from my brain. I’m going home. Not to Janice and Chris’s, not to Madras Palace (although I could really go for some of their pakoras right now) and certainly not to Grant Park. Home.

I’m halfway there before my hands lose the battle and I make a U-turn in the middle of the street, almost side swiping a parked car. Damn it.

For the last three months Jim has worked at a bike shop near Grant Park, which is a month longer than he’s worked anywhere else, as far as I can tell. His M.O. is to apply for low-wage, medium-glamor jobs whether he’s qualified or not, smile at the interviewers until they say “yes,” and then crush their low expectations to dust by becoming competent to the point of indispensability. Then, he quits for vague, knee-jerk reasons. That guy was pissing me off. It wasn’t enough responsibility. I got bored.

In hindsight, I guess that pattern ought to have made me cautious.

The shop is called Tough Nutz and sells fat tire bikes with names like Monster and Ninja. During the week, the shop is a mellow flow of CamelBak-toting young urbanites who are happy to pay $2000 to have Jim pat the wheel of some death machine and say, “You’re going to hit the side of that mountain like the fist of an angry god.” They’d be transformed, on the spot, from customer service reps and paralegals into fearless warriors. Jim had that power; it worked on even the most timid.

Even on me.

It took me a couple of months to believe he wouldn’t just vanish in a cloud of empty Red Bull cans and cupcake crumbs, and another couple to believe he actually enjoyed talking with me and not just taking contrary positions because he liked to see me get worked up. He was an energy drink in human form with a mind as deep as the ocean and changeable as the sky. But when I broached the subject of college or technical training or even--God forbid--the military, I got a cold stare and a pugnacious jawline. Jim, who could talk about any subject for hours, would clam up, or sneer and say, “I’m not your project. I’m not your rentboy diamond-in-the-rough. I’m happy the way I am, and who’d know that better than me? You?”

“I pity your parents,” I said once, and he was gone, out the door and somewhere beyond the reach of cell phones. Then he came back three hours later with a full grocery bag and started making chili like nothing had happened.

The last time, though, he didn’t come back. Hasn’t returned my calls, or my texts, or my email. I feel like a god-damned stalker, especially now, when I slip in the open door of Tough Nutz and keep my head down, pretending to browse, while Jim and the other clerk wait on customers.

Of course Jim’s customer is young and pretty. Of course he has to help her adjust her new purchase, kneeling like a prince to slip her tiny cleat-shod foot into the pedals while she wiggles her perfect little peach of a behind just above his head.

Just then he looks up, his eyes meet mine, and my heart stops.

“Hi,” he says. “Give me just another minute, I’ll be right with you.”

Well, that was easy. The slow walkback I’d planned in my mind--a talk outside, maybe coffee, dinner, negotiation, apology--melt away along with the tension in my upper back. In another hour we could be in my living room, in another three in my bed, and an unspecified time after that I could be getting my first decent sleep in a week.

Jim turns his attention back to his customer. “That’s good enough for now. I can make more adjustments on the trail if you need them. We still on for this weekend? Steeplechase Loop?” His hand slides up from her ankle to her calf.

“Try and stop me,” she says, giving her sporty braids a toss. The look they exchange makes it clear that five miles of mud, rubber and possibly busted teeth are going to be just so much foreplay before the main event.

Jim stands up slowly, adjusting his jeans, and puts on his best, bright customer-service smile.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, sir. How can I help you?”

Sir. Cold, so very cold, to make me listen to him arrange a date, and then to treat me like any other customer. It makes me freshly angry again that he can invent his own rules, not tell me about them, and then levy the stiffest possible penalties. It’s shockingly cruel. The knot in my stomach moves to my throat and I try to beat it to the punch, opening my mouth to say something, and then I see it.

His eyes are blank, nothing behind them but pleasant semi-interest, most of his big brain taking a vacation, leaving just enough behind to make a commission off some eco-trendy businessman looking for a fixed-gear bike to ride to work. No recognition, no acknowledgement, as if I hadn’t sewn a button back onto the very shirt he’s wearing now.

I have just enough presence of mind to mumble something about doing more research online, and then I get the hell out of there, before my head explodes all over the pricey nylonwear.

+++++

“It was like he’d never seen me before in his life. Like I was a complete stranger.” I’ve said a hundred permutations of this in the last half hour, and it’s still not making any sense. I’m not angry or indignant so much as freaked the fuck out.

Janice just nods and pours more Kahlua into my coffee--it’s the strongest thing she’s got in the house.

“Maybe it was his way of trying to make a clean break. You know, why argue if he’s already decided he wants to go? Maybe he was trying not to hurt you.” Even sweet, optimistic Janice--who’d tell you that a strangler was doing you a favor by keeping blood off your carpet--is having a hard time spinning this.

“Or maybe he just wanted to see what it looked like if he ran over my heart with a Kevlar tire.” There are track marks; I can feel them. But romantic grief always sounds ridiculous in real life.

Janice sighs into her cocoa and exchanges a look with Christine, who’s sitting at the kitchen table painting a birdhouse to look like a Swiss chalet.

“What’s with the birdhouse?” I say. “You live in an apartment.”

“It’s for the farm,” she says with a straight face. Janice is a cube-dwelling administrator at the hospital and Christine’s an R.N. Between them they barely make enough to afford a two-bedroom, but Christine has been talking about buying a goat farm for years, even though Janice is a city girl born with an iced mocha in her hand. The copy of Progressive Dairy Farmer on the coffee table is a reminder that successful relationships seem to thrive on fiction.

“I hope the birds can afford the mortgage,” I say, and go back to sulking, which feels better with an audience. Because I am miserable, damn it, and I don’t know what to do to make it better.

“We should tell him,” Christine says, and Janice waves her pink-manicured hands frantically.

“No, don’t! He’s not going to--”

“Tell me what?” Janice and Christine are having an argument with their eyes. Apparently Chris wins, because she wipes her hands and picks up her iPad and hands it to me.

“I got this email today,” she says.

Subject: James Kirk re: Leonard McCoy

Dear Friend/Colleague/Family Member:

JAMES KIRK has forgotten LEONARD MCCOY. Please do not mention Mr. McCoy’s name in Mr. Kirk’s presence.

Thank you,

Ji Yi Institute

“What the hell does this mean?” It makes no sense. It makes the opposite of sense. “Is it some kind of joke? What’s the Ji Yi Institute?”

Christine gives me a pitying look and taps a couple more times on the iPad. The Ji Yi Institute has a website, all soothing beige and bamboo leaves and vague references to meditative memory therapies and herbs. It’s like a parody, part of some sick, fake conspiracy that reveals unimagined depths of creative cruelty in Jim, because to go this far to--

“Hey,” Janice says, having reached over to click on the Contact tab of the website. “They have an office in Lakewood.”

My madness has an address, and it can be Googled. I’m halfway out the door and Christine, ever practical, is yelling, “Len, wait! That’s not a great neighborhood after dark, and they won’t be open.”

I don’t care, I want to see it. Nothing seems real right now; maybe nothing has been since that golden morning a year ago. I want my life back. No, I want Jim back, but I’ll settle for my life. Bland as it was, it’s better than this.

+++++

The address turns out to be a squat brick building on Tidewater Avenue, and I disbelieve that it’s anything but a cheap furniture store until I see the discreet brass sign on the door: Ji Yi Institute. If it’s a joke, it’s going pretty damn far.

It’s 9 PM and it should be closed like Chris said, but there’s light leaking from the back, just visible through the glass doors, and so I ring the bell. After a few minutes a dark figure comes to the door without turning on the lights in the lobby. All I can see is glossy black hair reflecting the street lights. The figure cracks the door open.

“Yes?” He’s got that psychiatrist’s inflection in his voice, questioning and presuming at the same time.

“Are you one of the Ji Yi people? A friend of mine got an email. I want an explanation.”

“Do you have an appointment?” He’s maddeningly calm when he ought to be intimidated by a large-ish stranger in a leather jacket in a so-so part of town.

“No, I don’t have an appointment. I have no idea who you are or what you do.”

He tilts his head, considering. “I am Spock, and I believe you are Dr. Leonard McCoy. I’ve seen your photograph. Perhaps you ought to come in.”

He leads me through the dark lobby and into the back, which is bland as any low-rent medical office, with the addition of some watercolors of cherry blossoms and cranes and one of those tabletop waterfalls. When he ushers me into an office and flips on the lights, I see that he’s donned a black Fedora, which is puzzling and makes him look vaguely Rabbinical.

“Please sit down, Doctor. May I offer you some tea?”

“No, thanks. A god-damned explanation will do fine.”

He slides noiselessly into a leather armchair behind the desk and steeples his fingers, a familiar gesture that makes me want to call the American Medical Association and report him, because if this character isn’t some pseudoscience-peddling charlatan, I’ll eat my (or his) hat.

“Dr. McCoy, the Institute provides services to those wishing to forget. Persons and companion animals are the most common--the dead or departed, or those our clients would prefer never to have met--but specific incidents are not uncommon: an embarrassing moment, a childhood trauma, even a particular fact. I had a client recently who had discovered that red food coloring is derived from beetles, and found that that fact interfered with her enjoyment of many foods, notably Red Velvet Cake. I cannot guarantee that clients will not re-learn the same information, of course, but we take reasonable precautions, such as the email I sent to your friend.”

“That’s impossible. You know that, right?” I’m suddenly desperate for confirmation that this is a scam, which would at least make some kind of sense. “There’s been research on erasing specific traumatic memories in mice, but not humans. Mice, damn it!”

“Indeed. But our techniques do not require biochemical intervention.” His eyes are dark, glittering, and direct, and it’s deeply disturbing because he’s so earnest.

“What, then? If you say ‘ancient Chinese wisdom’ I’m going to have to smack you. I’ve noticed you aren’t Chinese, by the way.”

“Through direct contact of minds. Specifically, the theoretical construct of quantum pseudo-telepathy--”

“Horsehockey. Every huckster on the planet uses that ‘quantum’ crap to hand-wave the impossible. Quantum mechanics is an actual branch of physics, and it’s got nothing to do with forgetting about your dead cat.”

“In general I agree, although quantum theory as currently posited contains notable errors.” I have no choice but to roll my eyes at that. “However, as is often the case in science, it is unnecessary to understand the underlying construct in order to derive value from the application. In this case, I am confident enough that I offer a 100% money-back guarantee.”

“By God, I hate you quacks like poison. There’s nothing about you that’s any different from any huckster I’ve ever met. Except maybe the hat.”

“Fees are held in an online cash escrow account established with a disposable account,” he continues, ignoring me. “We erase the memory of this account along with the other undesirable memories. If we are unsuccessful, it is a simple matter to retrieve the money. Otherwise, there is no trace of an interaction with the Ji Yi Institute to trigger the client’s memory.”

“‘We’. You mean ‘you’.” I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this sallow fraud has had his hands--literally or figuratively--on Jim, and it fills me with pity and a desire to punch Spock in his aquiline nose. Jim may not be college-educated but he’s bright as a penny, and only desperation make him pay some shady character to hypnotize him or give him Rohypnol or a whack on the head or whatever snake oil this Mr. Spock is selling. I have to figure out what his game is, and then get Jim to take his money back, and hopefully me with it.

“All right then, fine,” I say, trying with all my might to make my face look like I believe him. “If there’s no risk, then I’d like to try it myself. Jim’s forgotten me, huh? I want to forget him back.” I don’t, of course, not as long as there’s still a chance, and I probably wouldn’t even if I thought Jim were never coming back. But to be able to sequester him, to not think of him when I look at every damn thing and every damn place, not to have to remember him on Valentine’s Day but maybe some time safe, like Groundhog Day or when my taxes are due--it’s tempting. I understand why poor saps take their sorrows to the Ji Yi Institute.

“Very good.” He begins shuffling papers, a good act, not at all like a con artist who’s just found an easy mark. “Here is a consent form, and the escrow information. You will need to remove all items associated with Mr. Kirk from your home and car and place them in marked boxes or trash bags. All salvageable items will be donated to charity; the rest will be destroyed. The digital record presents a larger challenge; we recommend simply creating new email and social networking accounts. And we will require a list of all mutual acquaintances with their email addresses.”

“Sure, fine.” I grab a pen off the desk and begin filling out forms. “How much will it cost?”

“Two thousand dollars per year of acquaintance for humans. Five hundred for pets.”

“Lord have mercy.” After just one year, I guess we’re relative bargains, but I think of Jim earning $10 an hour for his bright smiles. Poor Jim. But I’ve got money in the bank and I know lawyers, so-- “Okay, okay. How soon can we do this? Tonight?”

The corners of Spock’s mouth turn down, the closest thing I’ve seen to an expression on his face. “You will have to call tomorrow and arrange it with the scheduler. Two weeks’ notice is generally sufficient, but this is our busiest time of year.”

All right, so it’s not like a huckster to turn down instant cash. But still. “What if I throw in a 50% rush fee? Could you do it tonight?”

“Impossible, I fear. I already have two bookings--”

“And I don’t spend tomorrow morning reporting you to the AMA and the Better Business Bureau. I’m not on it, but I understand that Facebook can be quite effective, too.”

One eyebrow tilts up, and the corners of his mouth twitch. “Perhaps I can fit you in. However, it will be quite late--3 AM at the earliest. And you must still complete all the preparatory steps; otherwise, the probability is high that you will not be satisfied with the results.”

“Oh, I’m sure I’ll be very satisfied with the results.” I’ve never been so happy to cheated in my life.

+++++

It’s midnight and I’m running around my apartment throwing things into cardboard boxes:

A refrigerator magnet from Stu’s Gator Shack (two alligators fornicating and the slogan “C’mon back, we can always make more!”).

A paper crown from a pancake restaurant in Athens (fake jewels and I Rule scrawled in crayon by Jim).

A birthday card: “Feliz cumpleaños para mi novia” (Jim was only just starting to learn Spanish).

A paperback copy of The Fortress of Solitude (KIRK written in marker along the edge because one of his co-workers is a kleptomaniac).

At least ten things with the Tough Nutz logo emblazoned on them (because after all this time Jim still thinks it’s funny).

I look at this collection of effluvia and wonder why none of it seems solid or significant. That would have come eventually, I hope: marriage and permanence, hard metal bands and the Law. Not impossible to dissolve, but requiring effort and forethought. From here, my time with Jim looks like a weekend at a second-rate resort, quickly forgotten when the hangover wears off and you vacuum the sand out of your car. But these bits of junk aren’t Jim, they’re signifiers, pointers to the location in my brain where the memory is kept. I see, I smile, I remember, until time smears them with the back of its hand into Oh, him? Some guy I used to date.

Between the ridiculous busy work and nerves, I can’t sleep and I don’t try to. There’s a soft knock on the door at 3 AM precisely and Spock enters, grave and somber as a vampire. I’m not worried on a primal safety level: Spock is pasty and narrow-shouldered and I’m 99 percent sure I could take him down if it came to that. I’m just not sure how it will play out--if I’ll get a good show for my two grand, or if it will just be embarrassing, like the time that Janice invited her friend the “pet psychic” over, and she’d waved her palms over the head of a disgruntled tabby and said he’d been the Duchess of Polignac’s cat in a past life and that his hairballs were caused by trauma from the Revolution.

“Please seat yourself in a comfortable chair,” Spock says, keeping the black Fedora on. “This will take approximately one hour.”

He has no psychoelectromothingamajigs, no herbal concoctions or tin cans connected with twine. He merely dims the lights and pulls up a hassock, tenting his fingers, elbows on knees, a look of intense concentration on his face. I have no idea what’s coming--in the frantic shuffle of paper and objects, I’d neglected to read the information sheet--and it’s a strangely intimate place to be in with someone I hate at 3 AM on a Tuesday morning.

He stretches long, pale fingers toward my face and whispers, “My mind to your mind--”

His dark eyes fill my vision, turning briefly to a desert landscape of red rock and heat haze, and after that there’s nothing in my mind but Jim--

...Jim walking so close to the edge of Tallulah Gorge that I’m afraid to breathe, even to tell him to move the hell back, but he grins and looks down and then back at me yells, “Hey! Toss me your phone and I’ll take a photo!”....

….Jim with a very well-researched fake migraine headache, sneaking into rooms and violating all sorts of protocols, all with the goal of giving me a blow job at work but getting fascinated with the MRI machine instead (“Those are some big fucking magnets!”)....

….Jim’s lips on the inside of my thigh, finding a spot that makes the world narrow to nothing else but his warm mouth and wet tongue, on the knife edge between laughing and shouting, cock so hard I can barely move....

….Jim dismantling a lobster with medical precision, me wondering where a broke kid learned a skill like that, before getting distracted when his fine hands dipped the claw in melted butter and he sucked out the meat....

…..Jim in the booth at the Waffle House, backpack in his lap, phone in one hand and a book in the other, free of sin and history, as if he’d been waiting there every one of his 25 years just for me to arrive...

On Tybee Island, the tide is rising, washing away the meandering footprints of gulls and winter visitors. The dry palm fronds rustle and it sounds like a whisper--

“Forget.”

part 2 >>

The Gift That Keeps Giving (K/Mc, R, MU)

2011-12-23T13:50:57Z

Summary: Written for space_wrapped. It's Secret Santa time on board the I.S.S. Enterprise, and Kirk knows just what to get the man who thinks he has nothing.
Word count: 4075
Warnings: Seasonally appropriate MU, but still: dubcon, low self esteem, references to Mirror Jesus.

Leonard McCoy hated Christmas, and Christmas appeared to hate him back.

Of course, he hated most of the other 365 days (686 on Mars) as well, but this Christmas thing was distinctly, uniquely awful.

In the rest of the Empire, the birthday of the person who taught humanity about the transcendent power of hating your enemy was largely forgotten; there were pragmatic ways of seeking revenge without recourse to the supernatural. But the Fleet loved its god damned traditions, and that included the exchange of “gifts”--gifts intended to redress perceived slights during the past year, or get one up on someone else in the next. The rules were simple: no death or permanent injury; no more than one shift off to “enjoy” the gift or recuperate from it; and the recipient had to be tricked into accepting their gifts, which over the past three years had included the gifts pouncing, slithering, replicating, exploding, beaming and (in one memorable case involving Sulu) hatching into the lives of their recipients.

A month before Christmas, the senior staff gathered to draw names out of a festively decorated Klingon skull. The name-bearing chits were a contrivance of Scotty’s, designed to avoid repeats of the previous year’s picks and not give the chooser their own name. That had not, of course, stopped Kirk from getting McCoy’s name each of the last two years, but then whatever the captain did by definition wasn’t cheating.

The first year McCoy was still getting to know the crew, so Kirk helped the process along by installing a microscopic camera in McCoy’s sonic shower. Crewmembers who waited by vidscreens for a pre-announced shipwide message (which was all of them) were treated to five minutes of McCoy briskly rubbing his naked body and singing “Freebird.” It was six months before he could stand the sound of an electric guitar again.

The next year, when Kirk’s occasional visits to McCoy during round-robin fucks had developed into something more regular, Kirk had perpetrated his own demonic version of the “12 Days of Christmas.” On Day 1, when Ensign Amiri had uncorked her splendid breasts and invited McCoy to stick his face between them, McCoy had been surprised, suspicious, and regretful. Kirk was possessive but too egotistical to admit it, so sanity dictated telling her to do everything up again and requisition a regulation bra. On Day 2, a pair of strapping galley cooks had offered to dust McCoy with sucrose and lick it off. McCoy had ignored them and placated himself with an extra large slice of pie.

On Day 3, things had taken a turn for the worse when Kirk summoned McCoy to his quarters, stroked his shoulders, whispered to him to strip, teased him hard and then slipped a sheath on his cock that prevented transmission of sensation. For the next nine days, McCoy had labored in a painful state of arousal as the ship transformed into a holiday carnival of sexual temptation. Finally, on Christmas Day, Kirk had removed the sheath and given McCoy the shortest and most necessary blow job in history. McCoy had come with the force of a photon torpedo, cursing Kirk at the top of his lungs and spraining his sacrum in the process. Merry fucking Christmas indeed.

In the year that followed, he and Kirk had become...McCoy wasn’t sure what, and he was even less sure why. Kirk fucked him up, down and sideways on a regular basis, to which McCoy had no real objection. But he also talked to him, appeared to value his company, and not for anything that McCoy could offer politically, apart from the occasional poisoning and the aforementioned fucking.

James Kirk was the undisputed master of everybody on his ship, and a growing power in the Empire; he’d had eight-ways with the Stellar Cartography department and gotten a blowjob from the Chief Archon of Cardassian (“hot but kinda itchy”). He could have anyone in the galaxy, but he chose Leonard, and the thought didn’t make him feel either angry or fortunate. It made him feel uneasy, because it made no sense. The less Leonard could figure out about Kirk, the more Kirk learned about him, and knowledge--when it came to Kirk--was a dangerous thing.

So when Kirk rattled the skull in front of him and gave him a smile full of devious promise, McCoy felt nothing but dread. At least until he looked at the chit and saw his own name.

It couldn’t be a mistake; Scotty wouldn’t botch something as simple and as important as this. Therefore it had to be either intentional on Kirk’s part, or on Scotty’s. Was one of them testing his loyalty, seeing whether he’d admit to the screw up? But that didn’t make sense, because the rules were the rules and everything else was up for grabs.

In the time it took McCoy to think this, Kirk moved on, and it was too late to get credit for immediately reporting the mistake. A few minutes later the officers filed out, grumbling or cackling at their picks, off to hatch schemes with alien plant spores and replicator reprogramming.

“Good luck, everyone,” Kirk said with a cheery wave. “Good luck, McCoy. Remember the rules.”

McCoy spent the next few days trying to parse out what Kirk meant by that. Was he supposed to give himself a “present,” and if so, what? A hypo full of Melvaran mudflea vaccine, like he’d given Uhura the year before? Or something better tailored to Kirk’s particular tastes, since Kirk was surely the instigator? Perhaps Kirk was engaging in a cruel experiment, giving every member of the staff their own names to see what they’d do. That theory lasted until Spock reprogrammed the ship’s computer to speak in a broad and wicked parody of Checkov’s accent, punctuated by sexual moans.

Now McCoy began to suspect that the awful, brooding suspense was itself the “gift.” Kirk, star-bright and perfectly devious, was more than capable of such a thing--allowing McCoy to twist himself in knots trying to figure out a riddle that had no answer.

“I give up,” McCoy said to Kirk, two days before Christmas. Conveniently, he happened to be on his knees at the time.. “Whatever mind game you’re playing, I don’t get it. I default. Tell me what to do, or put me in the Booth--just something. I can’t take the worry any more.”

Kirk at least had the decency not to ask McCoy what he was talking about. He stroked his cock thoughtfully and said, “You give up too easily. This is the season of miracles, remember? The blood of your enemies will rain down from the heavens, the obscure will be made plain.”

“There’s only one Power on this ship,” McCoy growled. “If you’re telling me to trust you, you’re out of your mind. If you’re telling me to wait--damn it, I don’t know if I can stand the suspense for another two days.”

“I’ll help by keeping you busy,” Kirk said, pointing down. “Suck.”

Christmas Day dawned dark and cold, because they were, after all, in space. McCoy spent his shift in a state of nerve-jangling suspense, starting at every sound and scanning everyone who entered Sickbay for weapons. When Spock stumbled in wearing a face-hugging arthropod, McCoy suspected he was acting as a decoy, but Spock’s muffled, angry cries for help (and the fact that Uhura was watching the whole thing and laughing) convinced McCoy otherwise. He spent the next four hours detaching the parasite, leaving behind blotchy sucker marks for Spock and fine collection of holo photos for Uhura.

McCoy had almost managed to forget what day it was when a red high-priority message flashed across his workstation screen.

I’d reprimand you for hiding in Sickbay, except that you’re already enjoying a glass of Christmas cheer in my quarters.

McCoy puzzled over the that one until he received a terse follow-up.

Get your ass down here NOW.

There was no refusing a direct order. Heart pounding, McCoy made his way to Kirk’s quarters, telling himself that whatever happened, at least the suspense would be over.

The great double doors to Kirk’s quarters swished open to reveal Kirk clinking glasses and downing a shot with Leonard McCoy. McCoy--the real McCoy--blinked a few times as the room spun around him. This was impossible, even for the reality-bending Kirk.

McCoy must have made some sort of sound because the other McCoy turned his head and whistled.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “Until now, I thought maybe this was all a practical joke. Guess not.”

“Who--” McCoy rasped. “Who the hell are you?”

The impostor had the nerve to grin. “Leonard H. McCoy, Chief Medical Officer of the U.S.S. Enterprise. A fine ship, but I guess I don’t have to tell you that.”

McCoy looked at his double with horrified fascination. It was like looking into a mirror that reflected his own image back, just more smug and wearing an ill-fitting blue tunic that did nothing for the broad shoulders that McCoy had always considered one of his better features.

“Clone? Android? Paranoid delusion?”

“Nope,” Kirk said, smooth as a cat licking cream. “He’s the 100 percent real thing.” Kirk poured a glass of Bourbon for McCoy and refilled the impostor’s glass. “Drink up, you’re going to need it. It’s Christmas night and you haven’t delivered your half of the gift exchange. You remember what that means, don’t you?”

“Punishment at the captain’s discretion,” McCoy said heavily.

“Yup.” Kirk gave an expansive smile. “But since summoning your double from a parallel universe wasn’t exactly an obvious solution, I’m going to go easy on you. Give you a chance to make good on your obligation and give us all a fantastic present in the process.”

“That’s generous of you,” McCoy said, not believing it for a moment.

Kirk put a hand on a shoulder of each McCoy. “It is. And as much as I might like the idea of keeping Dr. Mirror-McCoy here, his presence is going to raise some difficult questions, so this is a one-night-only engagement. Very simple ground rules: fuck each other and get out.”

“What?” both McCoys said at the same time.

“Don’t they say ‘fuck’ in your universe?” Kirk said.

The mirror-McCoy coughed. “Not in polite company.”

“No worries, then; you’re definitely not in polite company.”

“I guess not.” The mirror-McCoy’s eyes narrowed. “Just what the hell is going on here? You said you brought me here for an important experiment, not some kind of Jim Kirk alley cat shenanigans.”

“It’s very important. I need to find out if two McCoys fucking each other is twice as hot as one, or even more. That part’s for science. But it’s a gift for you, too, McCoy. You want to know why I fucked you more than once--more than 100 times this year alone, in case you were wondering. I’m not sure I can explain it, so you’re just going to have to experience it for yourself.”

“Now wait just a doggone minute.” Mirror-McCoy’s eyes narrowed. “This isn’t some sick joke? You two are an item?”

“Ever since he threatened to send my family to a forced labor camp if I didn’t give him head.” McCoy had never been sure if the threat was serious or just to add the spice of coercion.

“Well isn’t that a fine how-de-do. Real nice universe you’ve got here.” The man’s disdain sat badly with McCoy, although the stern expression at least made him look more dignified than the ridiculous wide-eyed grin.

“It’s not as if I created this universe. You have a complaint, take it up with the top guy.”

“Which is me.” Kirk bent his head like a coach giving his team some last-minute threats. “Arguing is great foreplay but we don’t have all night. So, gentlemen? Let’s get on with it, please.”

“You’re serious.” McCoy didn’t bother to make it a question. “You brought my genetic twin over from a hitherto unknown parallel universe--a discovery that could revolutionize the galaxy--just to fuck me.”

“Pretty much. You better start thinking about next year’s gift now, McCoy, because this one is going to be hard to top.” He turned to Mirror-McCoy. “So, do you want to pitch or catch?”

“I don’t want to do either, god damn it.” The man’s expression had gone from incredulous to apoplectic; McCoy considered warning him about the risk for atherosclerosis. “I demand you return me to my universe immediately, or I’ll--”

“Call Security? Report me to your captain?” Kirk said, and both Kirk and McCoy had to laugh at the man’s futile rebellion. “Face it, unless you’ve got an ion storm up your sleeve, you’re doing this. It’s just sex, McCoy. I’m not asking you to kill your grandmother.”

“He’s right,” McCoy added, for good measure. “That was a lot harder.” He was pleased to see the corners of Mirror-McCoy’s mouth turn down and his square shoulders slump in defeat.

“So, that’s settled,” Kirk said briskly. “Since we don’t seem to be making a lot of progress here, I’m going to flip a coin.” He produced an old Imperial Double Eagle and spun it easily between his fingers. “Let’s warm up with a blow job. McCoy, since this is your home universe, you call it.”

“Tails.”

The golden coin flipped through the air and came to rest in Kirk’s palm.

“It’s heads, so you’ll be giving head. We’ll worry about the tails later.”

Mirror-McCoy pouted but looked resigned to his fate. It was, after all, just sex, as Kirk said. No man in his right mind would really resist a blow job, and if he did, that would be a pretty grave insult to McCoy. Determined to show this Mirror-McCoy a good time if it killed both of them, McCoy dropped to his knees.

The first weird thing was opening his own fly from the opposite direction. The second was pulling out his own cock. Well, properly speaking not his, but one he knew very, very well. He was grudgingly pleased at how thick and heavy it felt, even limp. An involuntary glance upward showed Mirror-McCoy staring at the ceiling like it was the most interesting thing in the universe, not wanting to get an eyeful of his own face in proximity to his own cock. McCoy was seized with a sudden fear: what if he couldn’t get Mirror-McCoy to come? What if he couldn’t get him hard at all? Jesus but Kirk would have a field day with that, and with good reason. It had been more than a year since he had any cock but Kirk’s in his mouth; maybe he’d lost the knack.

“You can do it, McCoy,” Kirk said, putting a hand on the back of his neck, urging him along.

His own cock responded, either to Kirk’s touch or to the half-forced press of his head into another man’s groin. He could do it to Kirk, he could do it for Kirk, but he wasn’t sure if he could do it for himself.

“Go on,” Kirk said, encouraging. “You know what he likes.”

It was true. They had the same nervous system, him and his grinning Doppelganger. McCoy should be able to blow his roof off, show him how things were done in this universe and shut Kirk up at the same time. With fresh determination, he cupped a hand under Mirror-McCoy’s balls, wet his lips, and leaned in to give him the blow job of a lifetime. Mirror-McCoy clenched his fists and braced.

McCoy couldn’t do it.

“Come on, man,” Mirror-McCoy said crossly, peeking out from under his long lashes. “Fish or cut bait. I want to go home.”

It was an odd kind of impotence, not being able to get himself hard, a novel kind of failure.

“You know what this needs?” Kirk said, relentless. “More nudity. Both of you, take your shirts off.”

They did, giving the same aggrieved sigh in the process. The sight of his own chest--a little paler, less developed, and less scarred--did nothing for him.

“That’s hot,” Kirk insisted. “Super hot. I’ve got a holocam recording it so I can keep it for posterity. Oh, yeah.”

“What if I can’t do it?” McCoy muttered. “I’m not being stubborn, I just--” It was impossible to explain what it meant to confront himself--even a watered-down and sappy version of himself--and fail to see the appeal that had inspired Kirk to maniacal heights of dedicated torment.

His own face looked down at him with disappointment and contempt.

“You probably have some folksy aphorism to cover this situation,” McCoy snarled.

“Sure do,” Mirror-McCoy said. “You suck.”

An airless silence fell over the room, and Jim crossed his arms and looked vexed.

“This isn’t working out the way I planned.”

+++++

Leonard woke with a start to the gloom of ship’s night, a dry mouth, and a colossal sense of disorientation.

Beside him, Jim stirred and rolled onto his side, almost brushing Leonard’s back. The bed was too small for two large men to do anything except breath without disturbing each other.

“Hey, you awake?”

“No,” Leonard said, feeling headachey and resentful.

“Uh huh.” Jim shifted closer so that he was spooning against him, the gentle, greedy hand that Leonard knew so well rubbing the his chest above his pounding heart, roaming down to his hipbone, and inevitably finding his erection. “Ah hah, I knew it. You’ve been having a hot dream without me.”

Leonard tried to curl away from Jim’s hand, clinging to his remembered pique even though he knew it was unfair.

“Not hot. Weird.”

“Oh?” Jim’s voice softened and his hand retreated to Leonard’s belly. “Interesting weird or bad weird?”

“Mirror weird.” Leonard must have sounded worse than he felt, because now Jim wrapped an arm around his middle and pulled him close.

“Ugh, sorry. I can’t blame you; having an evil twin, thinking about everything in your life and how the evil version of it would suck, or worse, if you’d like the evil version better. Or what if some things were exactly the same--what would that mean?”

“Yeah, what indeed.” For Jim, that amounted to deep introspection. Except in the matter of command, where he could be brutally self-critical, Jim sailed through his extraordinary life without a bit of the brooding scrutiny that Leonard gave every major life event.

Including this thing between the two of them, whatever it was. This thing that had Jim chasing after visiting scientists one day and wrapped like a Kudzu around Leonard the next. The thing that meant the other officers always left the seat to Jim’s left open for Leonard at the Captain’s table, but that the hot rumor among the crew was that Jim was getting on with Spock, of all people.

Leonard grunted, and sighed. He didn’t want to think; he wanted to lie back in Jim’s arms without a care, maybe let Jim take care of this perverse erection. If only his damn brain would leave him alone.

“Hey,” Jim said, sweet lips at his ear. “What do you want for Christmas? Only two days left, and if it’s something besides sex or synthesized food protein, you’re going to have to give me time. Nearest shopping arcade is 200,000 light years away.”

“Christmas,” McCoy humphed. “Who bothers with that any more?”

“Me. It’s fun, and it’s good for morale. And I want to give you something. Do you think it’s too late for one of those secret gift exchanges? Maybe I could arrange to get your name. After all, I’m captain.”

Kirk didn’t make good on his threat--there was an ion storm, and a transporter malfunction, and the usual batch of crises--and when Christmas dawned dark and cold, Leonard figured he was in the clear. The ship was quiet, the human crew celebrating or not after their own preference, the aliens enjoying having the gym to themselves. Leonard wandered for a while, had a glass of cheer with Scotty, and finally ended up in his own quarters, half his mind on a Russian novel and the other half wondering if he was even going to see Jim that day.

Not five minutes later Jim commed him.

“Bones,” he said, sounding exciting. “Come down to my quarters; I have something for you.”

Leonard did so with a sinking feeling, wondering if he should grab a pair of socks or a plant or something to offer in return.

What greeted him when he walked into Jim’s quarters was not, however, a cask of aged Bourbon or Lt. Akiyama wearing nothing but a bow. It was himself--the beat-up, pissed-off, handcuffed, evil, malpracticing version of himself.

“Figures,” the Mirror-McCoy groused. “The only thing that could make this day worse is him.”

“This is your idea of a present?” McCoy said, horrified. “Where the hell did he come from, and why--”

“I was just going to send him packing without mentioning it,” Kirk said. “That ion storm--what were the chances a McCoy, any McCoy would be on a Transporter pad at that exact moment?”

“About the same as the chances I want to be here,” Mirror-McCoy snarled. “You said you’d send me back, Kirk. Now you want to torture me with this pie-faced numskull? I thought you were supposed to be the ‘good’ one.”

“I’ll send you back, I gave you my word. But first, you’re going to tell him.”

“Tell me what?” Leonard’s spine, already thoroughly chilled, got a bit colder.

“Do I have to?” Mirror-McCoy made a face like he was smelling cheap cologne. “God, this is a nightmare.”

“Tell him,” Jim said firmly.

“‘All right, fine.” Mirror-McCoy fixed his eyes on the ceiling and said in a obnoxious sing-song voice, “Your boyfriend here wants me to tell you that he--I mean Kirk, the real Kirk--and I are--what do you call it? Oh, right, fucking.”

“And?” Jim prompted.

“Damned if I know. But it’s been going on for a while now. It’s exclusive, at least on my side, because he’d have me castrated otherwise.”

“Charming,” Leonard said, swallowing hard.

“But he wouldn’t, would he?” Kirk pressed. “He treats you well, right?”

“Between the jealous rages, and the bizarre tests of loyalty, and the strange ‘gifts’? Sure, he’s a prince.”

Jim looked satisfied. “Good. All right. I’ll call Security and we’ll get you back to that universe of yours before Christmas dinner.”

“God damn it,” Mirror-McCoy said. “Can’t you wait until morning?”

“What, and miss your gift? What do you think your Captain Kirk has all picked out for you?”

“I don’t know,” McCoy sulked, “I thought maybe it was this. Now I have another present to look forward to. Oh, joy.”

A few minutes later, four security officers arrived, and Leonard had the pleasure of seeing the surlier, eviller version of himself hauled away in restraints, muttering “Merry fucking Christmas to me.”

“He’s pretty awful,” Jim said, as the door swished closed. “But I like the uniform, and the V-neck crisscross thing? Nice shoulders. Yours, I mean.”

“Why, Jim?” Leonard said, unable to say anything else. “Why would you think I’d want to witness that?”

Jim shrugged. “It’s been bugging you, I know, the whole Mirror thing. I thought it would help if you could see that there’s a limit to how bad it gets. That he and his Kirk have--something, I guess. That it’s not all torture and backstabbing.”

“I guess not.” And it was a comfort, in a way. Leonard liked cosmic alignments as much as Jim mistrusted them. “But why them, do you suppose? Why Kirk and McCoy, when everything else is fucked up and evil?”

“It just works, I guess.”

“Mystery of the universe?”

“No mystery, believe me.” He smiled in that way that made Leonard feel like nobody but himself. “Merry Christmas, by the way.”

“I didn’t get you anything,” Leonard said. “So it’ll have to be either synthesized food protein or sex.”

Jim looped an arm around his shoulders and gave him a messy kiss on the cheek. “I’ll be happy with either. But you better get cracking on next year’s gift, because this one is going to be hard to top.”

Topanga Canyon (K/Mc, NC-17, AU) 2/2

2011-12-13T23:23:25Z

<< Part 1

+++++

As the sun heads for the horizon they go to a restaurant a little way up the coast, drinking and eating at an easy pace, filling in the rough outlines of their lives for each other. Jim dropped out after a year in college, drifted around the country until he washed up in L.A., and used the first burst of money from his acting career to fuel a mania for travel. He’s skied in the summer in Argentina, spent Christmas in a jungle lodge in the Amazon, slept in a van on the beach while surfing in Baja. It seems like too much for a person who’s rising 30, but Leonard’s learning that Jim loves nothing more than to smash obstacles--of odds, access, career possibilities.

Leonard sees how frighteningly easy it is to acclimate to privilege. They’re sitting at the best oceanview table in a restaurant that was full when Jim walked in without a reservation. They fight over the check, Jim winning with a firm hand, a self-mocking smile and reminder that Leonard is his guest. When they leave, Jim’s car is waiting for him, surrounded by a small crowd pretending to look at their cell phones while their eyes slide hungrily over it and him.

Night settles in, cool and clear. Leonard’s sun-soaked body shivers a little in its short sleeves, and Jim closes the roof on the car and leans over to rub Leonard’s goosebumped forearm. It gets Leonard’s engine running, low and deep like the one under the hood.

They walk through Jim’s front door and Leonard tries to repulse the little ripple of home. Leonard is a den-wolf by nature; he likes to growl at the world from the warmth and safety of his cave. This is Jim’s cave, but he gets the same feeling; walking in the door into the dark, Jim flipping the switch and dropping his backpack with a thud onto the floor.

Where things go from here, Leonard isn’t sure. When Leonard drives down to Atlanta for the express purpose of hooking up, it’s understood that fucking is the main point, and equally clear (to Leonard, at least) that Leonard will not stay the night. This is a date of sorts, with all of a date’s weird choreography and the added awkwardness of Leonard staying in the same house.

“C’mere,” he says, sliding open the door onto the deck. Leonard steps back out into night air, cooler here for the cliff exposure. Jim leans on the balustrade, arms crossed to keep himself warm, and points at the stars.

“It’s pretty clear tonight. How are you on constellations?” The moon hasn’t risen yet, and the skyglow from the city fades above the canyon wall.

“Pretty crappy. I grew up in the city, remember?” Leonard leans in next to Jim, close enough that their arms are touching.

“City boy,” Jim chuckles. “That doesn’t fit you at all. Okay, so--look. That’s the Big Dipper, right? It’s part of Ursa Major. Those two stars on the outside part of the cup point to Polaris, the Pole Star. That’s what the ancient navigators used to find their way across the oceans. They think maybe Polynesians made it here, to Malibu, and taught the local people how to build their style of canoes. Pretty amazing, huh?”

Leonard is more amazed that Jim knows this than by the fact itself. Jim’s got weird pockets of specialized knowledge that smack of of a book-loving child.

“You always been interested in the stars?” Leonard asks, shifting his weight a little in Jim’s direction.

“Yeah, I guess. My mom was into it. She bought me a telescope, when I was little. Say what you like about Iowa, but the sky is big and dark.” Jim’s voice has gone soft, the energetic lines of his body lax; there’s a vulnerability there. Leonard slips a tentative arm around Jim’s waist and he leans in, easily, as if it’s something they’ve been accustomed to do for a long time.

It’s just as easy to find Jim’s mouth, to turn and let the banister support his weight, hanging over air, while Jim’s body slides across his own, a shock of warmth and hard bone and muscle. He smells like clean sweat and salt air, delicious, and his mouth is hot and salty.

“Thank fuck for that,” Jim hisses into his ear after a few minutes, his body full against Leonard’s, so that Leonard can feel the press of Jim’s erection against his thigh. “If I’d had to be a fucking gentleman all night, it would have killed me. Watching you eat breadsticks--I thought I was going to have to pull you under the table.”

Leonard’s laugh turns into a gasp as Jim’s fingers slide into the waistband of his pants, clumsy and urgent. He jimmies the fly open and tugs Leonard’s pants and shorts down, all in one shot. Leonard’s cock springs into the cool night air and Jim wraps warm hands around it.

“Fuck yeah,” Jim says, breathless, like Leonard’s dick is a fast car.

He kneels down and sucks it into his mouth like he can’t wait another second. Leonard grips the balustrade and glances around, briefly panicked at the exposure, but there’s nothing but darkness. Jim’s mouth around him feels like slipping into a warm bath, except that it’s the opposite of relaxing. Jim’s hands stroke his thighs, and his eyes roll up to the stars above.

Jim takes his time, savoring, exploring Leonard’s ass with his hands, using his lips and tongue in ways Leonard hadn’t known were possible. It’s not just a shockingly good blowjob, though Leonard would be fine with that; Jim is showing him something, demonstrating something about life even as the tip of his tongue rings Leonard’s foreskin: Anything good can always be better.

Leonard runs his fingers through Jim’s hair, thankful. Jim seems to be thoroughly enjoying himself but Leonard’s innate sexual gallantry won’t let him prolong the inevitable. As he lets it build he tries pulling away, just a little, as much as he can with his hips fenced in by the railing, as a warning that he’s going to blow. Jim stays put and if anything shuffles a little closer on his knees, cupping Leonard’s balls, redoubling his efforts in a way that almost brings tears to Leonard’s sun-bleached eyes.

Orgasm hits him like a blow to his sacrum and he shoots, sand slipping away under him, gripping onto the railing so he isn’t pulled out to sea. There’s white light and a wash of pleasure across his nerves and brain and he actually cries out, a rarity. He swears he can feel Jim smirking, lips still wrapped around his softening cock. He takes an amazingly long time to swallow.

When Leonard gets muscle control back he reaches down to lift Jim up off what must surely be sore knees, but Jim rises easily, dragging his hands up Leonard’s sides, up under his shirt to his ribs. Leonard kisses him, long and deep, tasting himself and ghosts of wine and pepper.

“Do you have to be so damn good at everything you do?” Jim grins and rubs his hand along the scratch of Leonard’s stubble.

“I mostly concentrate on the sex. It’s amazing how much easier everything else is once you get the hang of that. Speaking of which--I’m fucking cold. Let’s go inside.” He threads his fingers through Leonard’s and pulls, Leonard following willingly.

Leonard loves the stillness inside, the big empty place with only the two of them and the creak of the floorboards. He arrived 10 hours ago in a stranger’s house, and now he’s here with Jim, who only lets go of his hand to grasp the rail as they go down the spiral stairs.

They pass Leonard’s bedroom and Jim doesn’t pause, just jerks a finger toward it.

“I had the housekeeper put actual sheets on your bed just, you know, in case. But you don’t have to bother mussing them up; she’s cool.”

“Was it that much of a sure thing?”

“With me? Yeah. But let me ask,” Jim says, as they arrive at his bedroom. “Out of curiosity, is there anything I could have done to fuck it up?”

“You could have been a conceited asshole. But I was pretty sure you weren’t, unless that bump on the head you took in April altered your personality.” Jim flicks on the lights and Leonard gazes on the inner sanctum. After the car, he’d expected--may not ceiling mirrors and satin sheets, but some kind of visible testament to Jim’s surely staggering ability to get laid. Instead, there’s blond wood and pearl grey fabric and not much of anything else, except a huge, abstract painting that looks like hills, maybe the hills around this house. It’s unsettling, in a way; there’s no evidence in the house of any other human beings in Jim’s life, unless there’s a hidden study somewhere with photos on the mantel, somebody’s shirt forgotten in a closet.

“Something definitely happened in April,” Jim says. “You fucked my concussion away, for one thing. Best medical treatment I ever got; that hillbilly hospital of yours is pretty advanced in that respect. Oh, that reminds me--you’re having lunch tomorrow with Dr. Lena something-Eastern-European, director of the Emergency Medicine Center at UCLA.”

Jim is in the process of shucking his shirt, so Leonard has to wait an agonizing three seconds to say “I’m what?” to his face.

“Don’t worry, you’ll still be able to sleep in. I’m meeting with my agent mid-day anyway. We’ll get you a car into the city.” He drops his T-shirt on the floor and goes for his belt buckle. “What is it? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because you’re--who did you have to call to get that meeting? And why?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” The jeans drop to the floor with a clank. “UCLA is the best hospital in Los Angeles County and one of the top hospitals in the country according to U.S. News and World Report.” This is not a sentence Leonard ever expected to hear while watching someone strip off his briefs. Jim’s erection appears unaffected by the conversation, though even it isn’t enough to distract Leonard from the topic at hand.

“I’m sure that’s true, but what does that have to do with me?”

“Professional contacts. Networking. Future possibilities.” Jim folds his arms, looking as businesslike as he can while naked. “Aren’t you going to undressed?”

Leonard actually starts unbuttoning his shirt before stopping dead. “God damn it. I guess this is some weird kind of favor, but you could warn a guy. How did you even get me a meeting like that?”

“This one was easy. Me to my agent’s dad to David Geffen and then to the hospital.”

“Oh, fantastic.” Leonard hasn’t had a string pulled for him since his dad insisted Leonard apply to Tulane as a legacy, a status his grades rendered irrelevant. Leonard wonders how Jim expects this favor to be repaid. “Some bigwig is making her have lunch with an idiot she barely knows on her day off. She’ll be in a great mood.”

“Ahh,” Jim scoffs, reaching for Leonard’s top button, “not everyone is as pure as you. You probably don’t eat the cookies your grateful patients bake for you.”

“This isn’t exactly cookies.”

“What, the lunch this? Or this this?” Jim’s hands stop halfway down and drop to his sides. “Aww, fuck, do I have to say it? I like having you around. That was kind of the theme of the earlier parts of the day--the walking on the beach and candlelight dinner and whatnot. The theme of this part is that I find you insanely hot and would really like to fuck your brains out, as proven by the fact that I’m still hard after thinking about David Geffen. Go chow with the lady, tell her how much better you do things at Central Bumfuck Hospital for all I care.” He gives an aggrieved little sigh. “I was just trying to help.”

That pretty much crushes Leonard’s rebellion, and he mentally files Dr. Lena Whatever under I’ll worry about it tomorrow. Jim finishes unbuttoning his shirt but keeps teasing, grazing his fingers up Leonard’s sides, pushing the shirt open so he can graze fingers against Leonard’s nipples. It’s clear now to Leonard that Jim’s life is a vector, and that the seeming tranquility of this place is an illusion: it’s an airplane moving through space, keeping a steady speed so there’s no sense of movement at all, until you look down and see the terrain has changed completely underneath you.

Leonard shakes his arms a little and his shirt slides off, Jim’s hands filling the void, stroking over Leonard’s pecs and shoulders. The two of them are the same height, and Leonard likes that, likes being nose to nose and shoulder to shoulder and being able to look directly into Jim’s eyes. Jim cups a hand against his cheek and says, “You’re still having fun, right?”

“Sure.” Hard not to, with Jim’s warm hands all over him.

“Just curious...you ever bottom? Is that something that you like?”

“Yeah, I have.” He tries to sound nonchalant. The truth is that--in light of his trust issues and safety issues and all-around issues--he’s only tried it a couple of times.

Jim presses, “As in, you like it, or you can take it or leave it?” Now Jim’s hands have circled their way around to his ass, by way of introduction.

“As in, I’d like to try it again. See if I can improve on the last times.”

“Ah,” Jim says, digging his fingers gently into Leonard’s flesh. “A challenge.”

“Shower first, maybe?”

Jim leans in and takes a breath of him, like he’s sniffing wine. “Doesn’t matter to me; you smell great. But sure.”

Of course, Jim’s got a shower the size of some New York apartments, with jets the likes of which he’s only seen in in-flight magazines. He lets Jim strip off his pants and they hop in into the steam together. It’s curiously innocent, or at least seems that way until Jim gets hold of the soap and starts lathering, slippery hands running over his shoulders and down his back and between his cheeks. Jim’s hair curls at the ends and his cheeks turn pink and his eyes sparkle, and Leonard realizes just how far gone he is, into this fantasyland of Jim’s creation, into Jim himself. It’s unfair, really--Leonard’s been living off crumbs, occasional weekend dalliances with men who, though no older than Jim, knew so much less than Leonard about what they wanted from life and from Leonard himself.

Leonard grabs the soap away from Jim, and gives a little prayer for his own soul.

Jim’s skin is warm and slick under his hands, and Leonard, feeling justified in his greed, wastes no time in reaching for his cock. It’s already half hard and rises beautifully into his hands. Jim’s cock has been haunting his dreams for weeks, slipping across his inner eye when he’s been looking at charts, hovering just outside his peripheral vision when he reviews X-rays. It’s been a struggle for him not to see it as a weakness, the helpless craving that ruined his marriage, the way an especially pretty one attached to a blue-eyed movie star has ruined his peace.

“I dig your brain,” Jim says, between mmmm sounds, “but seriously, you need to switch it off." He runs a a wet hand through Leonard’s hair. “We’re the only ones here. Forget about everyone else.”

It’s easy for Jim to say, lord of his own mountain empire, pleasing to God and man. It pisses Leonard off a little, but the pissed-ness doesn’t touch the desire, and so he ends up gripping Jim’s cock a little harder than he intended, pushing him back against the stone-tiled walls of the shower with unaccustomed force. Jim just squeezes his eyes shut and bares his teeth with pleasure and says, “Yeah, that’s it.”

Leonard rides Jim’s cock with his hand, and when he finds a rhythm, he cups the beautiful curve of Jim’s ass a few times and then slides his fingers between his cheeks. It’s hot there, even hotter than Jim’s heated skin, and he lets his fingers roam, enjoying the different textures. When he finds the telltale pucker, he presses against it, not entering, but it’s enough; Jim tenses and begins to mutter yeah, yeah under his breath, and a second later he comes, Leonard tearing himself away from Jim’s eyes just in time to see him shoot. It’s mesmerizing, a miracle of hydrostatic pressure and physiology; it is what it is, but it also hits Leonard somewhere deep, in the solar plexus, in the groin, in the most atavistic parts of his brain. He feels some loss when the water washes it away.

Jim rests, propped up by the shower wall, for a few moments, lips curved in a beatific smile, cock only a little bit softer. Then he puts his hands on Leonard’s shoulders, kisses him hard, and pats him on the ass.

“Clean up,” he says, pushing open the glass shower door. “I’ll go get stuff ready.”

Leonard wonders what kind of “stuff” he means and begins to clean himself a little self-consciously. He towels off and leaves the towel on the rack, not knowing what he’ll see when he opens the bathroom door, but it’s just Jim lying on his back on the bed, holding his iPhone above his head. The room is semi-dark thanks to lights under the lip of the bed that make it look like it’s floating.

“Dashboard lights?” Leonard says.

“Ha,” Jim says, plunking his iPhone on the bedside table. “Stories of my sexual escapades are--well, they’re not exaggerated, necessarily, but they’re a completely different from what’s in the tabs.”

“The ones involving guys, for instance.”

“Oh, hush,” Jim pulls a bottle of lube from the nightstand and holds it next to face with a grin, like he’s shooting a cheesy commercial. “I don’t hide anything; why should I? It’s the impulse to hide things that gets you in trouble.”

“Hiding in plain sight, in other words?”

Jim works an eyebrow. “I thought we’d agreed to leave your brain in the shower. Now get in my bed. Please.”

Leonard climbs onto the bed and into Jim’s arms and they kiss for a while, Jim’s mouth as casually luxurious as everything else around here. This time, though, Jim isn’t a mirage that’s going to vanish with the dawn; he’s a guy Leonard knows, a guy he fucks, a guy who could maybe be a friend.

When the feel of Jim’s lips sliding wet and a little rough against his own starts to get his motor running again, Jim untangles himself and grabs a couple of pillows.

“You’ve had a long day,” he says. “Why don’t you lie down and let me drive?”

Leonard, having no problem with that, does as he’s asked, and Jim starts a back rub that has Leonard making embarrassing sounds within minutes. Jim’s hands are warm against his cooling skin. It’s such a luxury to be touched like this.

After a thoughtless while, Jim tugs a little at Leonard’s hips so that he’ll raise them and make space for a pillow underneath. Jim’s hands knead his ass, part massage and part prep, loosening him up. Leonard breathes and tries to let go, of half-involuntary internal muscles and inhibitions.

“I’ve never seen anyone who looks like you,” Jim says, contemplative. “But you’re how I’d want to look, if I could choose.”

It’s a strangely extravagant compliment. “You wouldn’t be an actor, then. And finding shirts that fit is a bitch.”

Jim begins to stroke a finger down between Leonard’s cheeks, making his brain go numb. “I could definitely be an actor, but I could also be something else.”

“A doctor, maybe?”

“Nah. I hate needles. And hurting people in general.” Before Leonard can form a rebuttal, he feels Jim’s breath, hot and damp, and there’s a moment of suspense before Jim’s tongue finds its mark with a precision that makes Leonard yelp.

“Damn it,” he gasps, as Jim doesn’t stop. “Don’t, okay? It’s not safe like this--” He holds onto the pillow for dear life. “Without-- things--”

“I don’t need things; I’m sure it’s safe. Knowing you, you probably test yourself once a week, right?”

“I’m not talking about that, I’m--”

“I know, I know.” Jim manages to sound self-righteous from a spot just above Leonard’s ass crack. “You just showered. I’ve had every vaccine on the planet. Just once, why not acknowledge that the odds are in your favor?”

Caution is Leonard’s religion, including an assumption that anything that can go wrong will. He tries to believe in the penumbra of Jim’s good fortune.

“Just this once,” he sighs, and lets go.

What Jim proceeds to do with his tongue makes Leonard turn to water. Everything is hot, everything is wet, everything is beautiful. Leonard’s cock, in a state of grace, fills slowly, without urgency. He feels a cool slickness and then Jim’s finger inside him and he begins to moan in earnest. Time slows to nothing, and it’s so perfect that tears come to his eyes.

“Jim,” he sighs. “Ah, God.”

Jim answers by stroking a hand through his hair and nudging the blunt head of his cock where his fingers just were. He rubs it up and down for untellable minutes and for once, Leonard doesn’t feel greedy frustration building to climax. Images form behind his eyes: sunshine and blue ocean, little birds running back and forth ahead of the foam, and Jim’s immaculate smile, seen as if in retrospect, even though Jim’s right here.

“You ready?” Jim whispers in his ear. All Leonard has the strength to do is nod. Jim spends a minute rubbing his face in Leonard’s hair, kissing his shoulder, and then he pushes in, slowly, filling Leonard up.

+++++

Leonard wakes with the birds, internal clock still set for East Coast time, though his body feels all California: a little sore, a little sunburned, completely relaxed. He lies in bed for a while, watching a wedge of sunlight move slowly across the wood floor, looking at Jim’s sleeping face. Leonard’s never particularly liked watching people sleep; when they’re stripped of personality, it looks too much like death. But Jim sleeping looks like Jim awake: eyes crinkled at the corners, lips curved up, fingers tenaciously clutching a ball of sheet.

After a while, Leonard pulls on his shorts and wanders into the kitchen. He doesn’t dare touch the espresso maker, which looks like the ground station for a baroque satellite, but there’s one of the pod jobs and he manages to make a cup of coffee without causing a flood. He carries it onto the deck and enjoys the last cool air sinking as the canyon comes alive. Birds size him up, and a lizard clicks at him. He’s on an alien planet, but it’s starting to feel normal and right; later, he’ll remember to panic about it, but for now, he’s enjoying a damn good cup of coffee.

A half hour or so later, Leonard turns to see Jim in the doorway, arms folded like he’s been there a while, wearing pajama bottoms and nothing else.

“I’m glad I found you. I thought maybe you’d bolted.”

“Sorry. I have a hard time sleeping past 7, even at home.”

“An early riser? Oh, joy.” He ambles over and stands behind Leonard, kneads his neck for a minute or two before running his fingers through Leonard’s messy hair and stealing a gulp of his coffee. “I’ve got people coming over in half an hour or so. Business and stuff--I know it’s Saturday, but it can’t be avoided.” He bends over to kiss Leonard’s cheek. “Good morning, by the way. I’m sorry you didn’t, but I slept like a fucking log.”

They eat a lazy breakfast--bread and fruit and whatever else Jim can pull out of the fridge--and Leonard gets dressed in time not to frighten Jim’s housekeeper. The next arrival is Paul, a curly headed Mouseketeer of a personal assistant, who disgorges a laptop and a half-dozen other electronic devices onto Jim’s dining table and begins tapping away while Jim paces around the living room.

“If they get me the draft of the contract on Monday, Stella’s going to need at least a day to review it, so Wednesday is the earliest I can meet with Walter. How’s the afternoon looking?”

Paul clicks away. “Good. Lunch with Irene; she’s only in town this week.”

“Do I have time for a haircut?”

“In the morning, yes. Rivage?”

“Okay, but I want Andres, not Val. She has some kind of obsession with side parts.”

Leonard heads to his room to grab a paperback.

“Len!” Jim calls after him. “Don’t forget your lunch with the doctor.”

“Damn it.” Leonard couldn’t be less interested at the moment in a business lunch. “I didn’t bring a jacket and tie, and I have no idea where I’m going.”

“Hydra at 12:30,” Paul says. “The car will be here at 11:45. I suggest a jacket; check your closet.”

Leonard does, thankful for the fiction that he slept in the guest bedroom, and strangely not miffed that Jim called him “Len,” a nickname he’s resisted since he was old enough to talk. In the closet, he finds a dozen shirts and a half-dozen jackets and pairs of slacks that smell like the kind of shop Leonard would never dream of going in. Everything fits perfectly.

“Damn,” Jim says the second he reappears. “I can honestly say I’ve never wished I was the dean of a prestigious medical school more than at this moment.”

Leonard tugs at his cuffs, still disbelieving the whole thing fits. “How did you--”

“Just call me your fairy fucking godfather. Though actually, it was mostly Paul. I told him what you looked like--” Jim traces broad shoulders and a narrow waist in the air “--and he figured out your size. In clothes, that is.”

Leonard glances nervously at Paul, but the kid just gives him a wide-eyed smile and says, “There are more shirts in the back of the closet, for tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“We’re going to a club in Hollywood,” Jim says. “I can pretty much guarantee you’ll hate it, which I’m sorry about, but it’s good for me to be seen out and about during the negotiations. At least you’ll meet some of my friends.”

Leonard pulls Jim a little distance away from Paul and his fevered tapping. “The clothes,” he says. “The car service--whatever else. You’ll let me know how much it costs?”

“Bah. You think I pay for any of it? It’s a strange consequence of fame, but people give me free shit all the time. And even if they didn’t--my dumb ideas, my dime, okay?”

Before Leonard can answer, there’s a knock on the door and Jim goes to answer it, returning with a nice-looking young man wearing his glossy black hair in an unflattering bowl cut.

“Len, this is Rob Benjamin my agent. Rob, this is Len, my-- He’s Dr. McCoy.”

“I am pleased to make your acquaintance,” Rob says, looking anything but. Leonard shakes his hand, while Rob looks at him like he’s a fox about to make off with his prize chicken. “I believe I observed your driver out front.”

“Yeah, you better scoot,” Jim says. “You’ll see Rob later. He’s coming out with us.”

“That’s one of your friends? Your agent?”

“Sure.” Jim looks blank. “My attorney’’s coming, too.”

“What about the kid?”

“He’s not drinking age yet, and his mom would kill me.” He grabs Leonard’s shoulder and have pats, half pushes him out the door. “See you later. Break a leg.”

+++++

Dr. Lena Vladimirescu is already seated when Leonard arrives at the restaurant, looking as pleased as any doctor at being kept waiting. She’s a good-looking dark-haired woman in her mid-60s and a full professor at UCLA, which is enough to keep Leonard from ordering anything that contains garlic or spinach. She’s polite but Old World frosty, peppering Leonard with questions and stabbing hard at an undressed salad with her fork.

“We don’t have any open positions at the main campus,” she says, after Leonard, in an effort to get a conversation going, mentions the well-known shortages in Emergency Medicine staffing.

“I’m not surprised. Even with the demand being high, I’m sure you’ve got your pick of the best.”

“That is true.” She puts down her fork mid-bite. “I’m glad you understand that. We don’t make exceptions, even for...”

“Oh.” Leonard has a moment of uncomfortable understanding. “You thought-- Doctor, I want you to know that I didn’t request this meeting, and I’m not looking for any kind of favors or, well, anything really. My friend, he-- I guess he thinks this is how things work; you just pick up the phone and ask for whatever you want. I would have cancelled but I figured it was rude at this late date. I hope it’s not a complete waste of your time.”

Dr. Vladimirescu visibly relaxes and picks up her fork again. “Southern manners are not something we see very much of around here. It’s no trouble. I have had to do worse to keep the money flowing. Academia is just another form of business, as I am sure you learned at Tulane. And during your residency, which was where?”

“Emory.”

“Close to home. Your first choice?”

“Yes. I had a family,” he says, swallowing on the past tense. “I didn’t want to uproot them if I could help it.”

“Very thoughtful.” She pauses for a moment, considering, and then reaches into her slim handbag and pulls out a card. “As I said, we have no positions open now at the campus, but there are several at Harbor. Reasonable hours, part-time is an option. If you are ever interested, call me. Personally.” She actually smiles.

Leonard tucks the card into the pocket of the jacket that doesn’t belong to him, and smiles back, bewildered.

+++++

The car and driver take Leonard to an address on the beachfront in Topanga where, per Jim’s semi-comprehensible text messages, they’re going to be meeting Rob the agent and Stella, Jim’s attorney.

The house is nondescript from the road, but Stella is not. She greets Leonard at the door, a stunning African American woman with a razor-sharp chin-length bob, tilting her head to look up at Leonard in spite of four-inch heels, yet still managing to be imposing. She accepts his handshake, gives him the European kiss-kiss on each cheek, and leads him inside.

“I’m house-sitting for a client. He got a gig in Europe and had to leave on short notice, and he’s completely paranoid about renters. The problem is that I’m going to be moving myself in a few weeks. Jim!” she yells into the interior. “You said you’d help me out. Do you know anybody who’d take this place?”

Jim is standing by the door to the deck, wearing dark pants and a dark blue shirt, close-fitting shirt, hardly less jaw-dropping than the ocean view.

“Well, it’s not great--teak and bamboo, brown brown brown and so dark. And the bathroom--” He ambles toward an interior door and peeks in. “Ugh. Brass fixtures and Hollywood lighting. If I pop the CD player, am I going to find Hootie and the Blowfish?”

“He wasn’t this bitchy when he lived in a garage in Santa Monica,” Stella says to Leonard. “It’s progress, I guess.”

“But the view sells, it right?” Jim reemerges from the hallway. “I mean, you’d live here, Len, wouldn’t you?”

“In a heartbeat.”

“Fuck, check this out!”

At Jim’s exhortation, Leonard peeks into the master bedroom and sees that it opens onto the deck via double doors between the full-length windows. “I’ve only seen houses like this in movies. Don’t you get storms?”

“If there’s a tsunami, you’re fucked, but other than that, it’s just floods, wildfires, landslides, earthquakes, sharks--the usual. Lots of property damage, but everybody just shrugs and rebuilds. Plus it would be a great excuse to get rid of the glass blocks in the bathroom.”

Jim walks out onto the deck and Leonard follows. To their right is a crazed jumble of oceanfront houses; to the left, a public beach. It’s the kind of afternoon he’d kill for, back home, and yet the beach isn’t crowded.

“How did the meeting go?” Jim asks.

“Okay, I guess. I think she liked me.”

“Don’t sound so surprised.”

They lean on the railing in easy silence. After a while, Jim says, “How about Jo? Would she like it here?”

Leonard thinks his nature girl, her father’s daughter, with her love of the backwoods and her disdain for shopping malls. “She’d love it. It must be great for kids--just let ‘em loose on the beach.” He imagines Jo roaming the wide beach like a ghost of something that will never happen climbing the rocks, peering into the tide pools, maybe learning to surf. He might have to arrange that some day, though a transcontinental trip would be a tough sell to Jocelyn.

His brooding mind is already thinking of logistics--whether it would be too expensive to book a suite so Jo could have a bedroom of her own--when Jim nudges his arm.

“Hey. I brought you a shirt. You can change in the guest room.”

Leonard tears himself away from the salt spray and does as directed, feeling as if he could switch personalities as easily as he switches shirts. Dr. Leonard McCoy of Clarkesville, Georgia, is an overnight bag in Jim’s house, ready to be changed back into for the journey home.

When Leonard reappears, Rob the agent is sitting with his legs crossed and his back straight in a leather chair, leafing through a magazine in the way Leonard hates, pushing at the pages so that every one ends up creased. He gives Leonard a bare nod of acknowledgement.

“And also,” Rob says, “Brett Samuels Is a complete, unmitigated ass, who screwed me five years ago on the Walton deal and still owes me $1000 from the Breakwaters charity golf tournament, as well as three days in Palm Springs that that I will never get back. I also believe his sailboat may have been captured by pirates off Catalina.”

“What makes you think that?” Jim says, dead serious.

“His unavailability for the entire weekend. Given the magnitude of this deal, it’s the only reason I can imagine for him being out of contact.”

“Unless he just wants one last chance to fuck around with you,” Stella says.

Jim makes a dismissive gesture and works at a smudge on the beige leather sofa with his thumb. “You watch--it’ll be at least a week before they come back to the table. They want me, so they hate me. They hate how much they want me. And they hate being parted from their money, so they’re going to draw it out as long as they can.”

Stella uncrosses her splendid legs and stands up. “It’s a good thing I charge by the hour. So are we going to go?”

“Yes, let’s go be pretty in Los Angeles.” Jim offers an arm to Stella; all Leonard gets is a dour look from Rob. Nonetheless, when they pile into Jim’s SUV, Leonard gets shotgun and Stella and Rob get in the back seat and onto their phones.

“This may be a naive question, but what do you want with so much money, anyway?” Leonard asks quietly. “Isn’t what you have enough? You have a great house and a bunch of cars and it’s pretty obvious you don’t like making crappy popcorn movies, so why do it? Just to be the biggest and the baddest for a while?”

Jim pats Leonard’s knee. “Spoken like someone who does something useful for a living. For me, money is independence. Yes, in the short term it means I’m going to be in at least one braindead rom-com, and a superhero movie, and a Something 2: A New Beginning. But then I’m going to start my own production company. Not some vanity shit in a trailer on the back lot, but a real one that runs the way they should be run, without a bunch of mouth breathers sitting behind limestone desks. A good place for creative people.”

“I thought all actors wanted to direct.”

“Not this one. I want real control.” He gives Leonard a sidelong glance from under his long eyelashes. “Some people consider power an aphrodisiac, you know.”

“Yeah, well,” Leonard notices the back seat has suddenly gotten awfully quiet. “Some people are idiots.”

+++++

Leonard enjoys dinner because he’s not really expected to talk; Jim, Stella and Rob carry on a steady and sometimes simultaneous conversation heavy with names Leonard doesn’t recognize. After that they head to the club, a nondescript hotel space with an interior like a 1960s spaceship, all silver with white sofas and rainbow lights. An obsequious host leads them to a back room framed by you’re-not-allowed curtains and settles them into a private alcove. Stella slides in next to Leonard and orders a cocktail with a French name and Jim gets a bottle of vodka for the table. A woman in a pale gray catsuit with a retro pile of platinum hair mixes vodka tonics for far longer than required.

“I hate this place,” Stella says, sipping her golden drink.

“Indeed,” Rob says. “You say that every time we come here.”

Shiny people drift from alcove to alcove, holding drinks. It’s got a sybaritic Roman feeling about it, except that the orgy possibilities seem remote; other than drinking and maybe a little covert drug use, they mainly seem to be working angles of one sort or another--trading industry gossip, looking for hookups. Rob seems to act as gatekeeper, approving the supplicants who approach Jim’s table to talk to Jim himself, or dismissing them with a backhanded, insulting politeness that Leonard grudgingly admires. Stella annotates the visitors with her beautiful lips an inch from Leonard’s ear:

“He just signed with CAA.”

“She survived four seasons on Wilder Dreams.”

“Oh God, her--she’s on one of the housewife shows, maybe. I don’t even know.” This last gets the heave-ho from Rob after a few minutes of trying unsuccessfully to grope Jim.

“I believe your friends are looking for you,” Rob says.

“Really?” She struggles to look over her shoulder without falling off her high heels. “I don’t see them.”

“I’m quite sure that if you stand up and walk away, you will.”

Another of Jim’s actor friends, a guy named Scott with a pleasant but unactorly face, appears with two women, one well-polished and blonde who sits next to Jim, and the other dark-haired and short, who drops down next to Leonard.

“A guy at my table says you’re a model--he says you did a Prada campaign in Europe. Is that true?”

Leonard coughs. “Do I look like a model?”

“Actually, yes. There’s an easy way to check, though. How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Eleven.”

She laughs. “So, not a model. What do you, as they say, ‘do’?”

“I’m a doctor.”

“No shit--really? This is my lucky day. First I sell a pilot to CBS, and now I find a handsome doctor in the ass-end of Western civilization.”

“Congratulations on your success.” Rob’s hand, bearing a business card, stretches toward them from the other end of the banquette. “Do you have representation?”

“Not yet,” she says, pocketing the card. “Thanks.” Then, to Leonard, “You’re not one of those Dr. Feelgoods, are you? Plying Jim Kirk with Xanax and Oxycontin?”

“No, I’m an ER doctor from Georgia, visiting for the weekend.”

“Too bad.” She stirs her drink with her finger. “I could use a supplier. No, I’m just kidding--I’ve got to keep a clear head, if I’m going to write 22 episodes of a drama about a family with a reality show based on their repo business in New Orleans. Plus, they’re vampires.”

“That sounds--”

“I know. Don’t worry, it’ll be funny, and it represents the terminal evolution of the vampire craze, so there’s that to be said for it. Anyway, they’re not sexy vampires, which is why it’s a miracle it sold. You’d watch a funny meta-reality drama about non-sexy vampires, wouldn’t you?”

“I would, but I don’t own a TV.”

“Ooohhh,” she says, rolling her eyes. “That’s great--a hot doctor practicing in L.A. with a bunch of celeb patients, except he hates Hollywood and doesn’t even own a TV. I don’t suppose you’re a single dad?”

“I am, actually. Twelve-year-old daughter.”

The woman sighs. “Perfect. We’d have to make her a little older so she can go to The Grove alone. But I could definitely sell that.” She sticks out her hand. “I’m Tonia, by the way.”

“Len,” he says, taking her hand.

“Hi, Len.” She keeps it for a minute. “I want you to know that I’m not usually this annoying to strangers. I’m just high on life right now. And tequila. Mostly tequila.”

There’s a shuffle as somebody new arrives at the table, and Rob takes advantage of it to effect a shift that puts him next to Tonia and Leonard next to Jim. After a few minutes, the visitor slaps Jim on the shoulder and wanders off, and Jim puts his hand on Leonard’s knee and leans in to talk in his ear.

“She’s cute,” he says. “Are you going to share, or shall I find someone for myself?”

“What?”

“The girl.” He nods toward Tonia. “We can get a room right here in the hotel. Two, if you’re feeling shy. I was holding off because--”

“Jim,” Leonard says, finally getting it, “I don’t want to take her home; why would I?”

“It just looked like--” Jim looks at Tonia, and at the blonde sitting next to Stella, the one Stella had said was on some TV show. “Whatever you say. But for now, you’ve got to dial it down. That girl thinks she just hit the jackpot.”

“I wasn’t flirting with her! We were just talking.”

“You were existing, which is enough. But since you’ve crushed my hopes of an epic four-way, the least you can is take me home and show me a good time. Hey.” He leans over and pats Stella on the shoulder. “I’m about done here. We’re going to give Marta a ride back to her hotel.”

Jim scoops up the actress, and Leonard goes to say goodnight to Tonia, who looks puzzled but hands him a card. It’s got a little cartoon of a writer tearing her hair out.

“Call me,” she says, “if they ever let you out of Georgia again. I can talk about things besides business. I read books, too.”

They exit the club with Marta the actress on Jim’s arm. Just before the door opens, Jim taps Leonard and says, “Hola--paps. Just look straight ahead and get right into the car,” and then there’s a burst of bright-white electronic flashes. It’s neither noisy nor chaotic, just a couple of young guys in white T-shirts with photographers’ bags draped around them, aiming their lenses at Jim like he’s an endangered species of bird. Jim’s shoulders hunch like he can’t help it, but Marta turns and flashes a quick, bright smile and the cameras flash at double time. Leonard, following orders, hops into the front seat of Jim’s SUV and they speed away. Leonard glances in the rearview mirror and sees the photographers in the darkness, peering at the displays of their cameras.

“Jesus,” Leonard says, nerves jangled. “How can people make a living that way?”

“Easy. They’re not people,” Marta says. She’s sitting behind Leonard, with Stella on the left and Rob in the middle--a lucky man, Leonard would have thought, except that he has his knees pressed together and his eyes on the cell phone in his lap.

“Good,” he says to no one in particular. “That was good.”

They drop off Marta at the rear entrance of a hotel lined with spotlit palms, and Rob and Stella at a more sober-looking apartment building. Stella extends a delicate, long-nailed hand through the gap in the seat.

“It was lovely to meet you, Len. I hope we’ll be seeing more of you.”

“Likewise,” Leonard says, amused. He’s not an industry person, so she’s apparently already forgotten his basic biographical details, like the fact that he lives on the wrong coast.

The silence is freshly awkward. Yesterday Jim was just Jim, his celebrity a hypothetical construct. Now Leonard’s seen it and it isn’t something that he is, it’s something that he does and apparently works at very hard, irrespective of whether he enjoys it.

The city lights disappear and they’re on dark, curving road, and Leonard says, “Why did you think I wanted to go home with that woman?”

Jim gives a one-shouldered shrug. “She was cute, and she seemed pretty sharp. A writer, right? Sounds like your beat.”

“I’m sure she’s very nice. I’m sure any guy would be lucky to have her come home with him. Any straight guy, because I’m pretty damn sure I mentioned I’m gay.”

“I know, but--” He stops, then starts again. “I mean, you were married to a woman. For six years.”

That shuts Leonard up pretty effectively, as his mouth fills with the bitter, imagined taste of his own failure. Even though he’s been divorced now as long as he was married, he remembers the feeling with aching clarity--Jocelyn’s disappointment and self-doubt in the face of Leonard’s deficient desire, her anger when he finally confessed. He’d cried, she’d cried; he’d tried to explain his guilt, his confusion, and it hadn’t mattered, because he couldn’t hide his relief or his craving for her forgiveness. She’d given it, eventually, but it had cost him everything.

“I loved my wife,” he says heavily, after a while. “I thought that would be enough.”

“And love and sex always go together?” There’s a hint of amusement in his voice. “Because you don’t fuck like a guy who hasn’t gotten laid in 12 years.”

“No, they don’t,” Leonard says stiffly, not particularly wanting to share what he considers--not sordid or shameful, but inconsequential; young bankers and traders and gallery owners, well-groomed and foul-mouthed, sleeping off alcohol and Leonard on Sunday mornings, less demanding but probably not much different in substance from what he’d get here for the same amount of effort. “But it’s always better that way, isn’t it?”

“Uh huh,” Jim says, seemingly losing interest in that part of the conversation. “I’m just relieved you haven’t been going without. I’m concerned about your sexual welfare, I really am.” And then, after a while and with a sigh, “I accept the biology of it, but it seems like a waste. Women are really great.”

“Yes, they are.” That, Leonard has never denied.

When they arrive, Leonard doesn’t even stop at his putative bedroom, just pours himself a glass of water and follows Jim into his bedroom. He strips off his borrowed clothes without ceremony and it’s like the end of an ordinary day--recapping people and places, talking about things they couldn’t talk about in mixed company.

“That actress, Marta?” Jim says. “Her agent called Rob about having us go out on an official date. I didn’t really want to have dinner with her because she always seems kinda snooty in the press, but in person? I’ve met worse.”

“You let that guy arrange your dates?” Leonard’s not sitting on the bed yet because he hasn’t been asked. “I know he’s a friend of yours, but it seems like what he knows about human relationships you could put in a thimble.”

“And yet, he and Stella are about as hot and heavy as it’s possible for two state-certified entertainment professionals to be.”

“Him?” Leonard boggles. “Her?”

“Oh, yeah. They’re moving in together; that’s why Stella is ditching that place on Beach Drive. Imagine my pride. I’m sure that when they have little baby accountants, I’ll be the godfather.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. It just goes to show that there’s somebody for everybody.”

“Or that you find big dicks in unexpected places.” He pats the comforter. “Speaking of which--”

Leonard sits down, sheets pleasantly cool against the back of his thighs. Jim gives him a smile of pure sunshine and rubs his arm for a minute. For Leonard’s dazzled heart, it’s almost enough. It’s not Jim’s fame or wealth or beauty, but the fact that Jim accepts his past without believing it means anything about the future. It’s the chance to escape the gravity of his own failure, on the tail of a rocket that’s perpetually bound for somewhere new.

They fall back on the bed together, Jim kissing him deeply and pushing a knee between Leonard’s, and for once he forgets to be afraid.

+++++

Leonard comes to in a pile of sheets and limbs. Some time in the night it got cool, and he and Jim ended up in the middle of the bed, fighting for a pillow, not yet having unconscious radar for each other.

He thinks Jim’s asleep, face down in 1000-threadcount bliss, until Jim’s hand begins to wander over his belly and hipbone.

The lazy mutual handjob that follows is pure indulgence--Leonard got plenty last night, but there are rainy days coming, so he doesn’t reproach himself. Afterward, he feels sticky and sweaty and smug, basking in the morning sun and the feeling of Jim pressed against his side.

“What do you want to do today?” Jim rasps in his ear.

“I don’t know. More of this, maybe.”

Jim smile broadens. “Good plan. But if you want to do any tourist shit--Universal or Santa Monica Pier or whatever--that’s fine by me. Since tomorrow is your--”

“Last day,” Leonard finishes. “I know.” He has a flight out in the morning. Georgia has never seemed so cold.

“Right,” Jim says around a yawn. “When are you coming back?”

Leonard feels a rush of relief and pleasure. “Not exactly sure. Might be able to get another long weekend in a month or two.”

“No, I mean for good. To live out here.”

“What?” Leonard almost pops a vertebra jerking his head around so he can look at Jim. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, come on, you can’t act like this is a surprise,” Jim says, unperturbed. “You took the meeting about UCLA. You liked Stella’s client’s house. You practically drool any time we’re near the ocean, and look at you--you’re fucking glowing.”

“I don’t-- I’m not--” It takes a couple of tries for the engine in Leonard’s brain to turn over. “Of course I look like that; this is a vacation. I had lunch with Dr. Vladimirescu as a courtesy. We talked about some time possibly in the future--”

“This is the future.” Now Jim is scary-calm and serious. “Believe me, I know something about opportunities, and you’re never going to get a better one. You’re going to love it here, I know it, but just in case I want to make sure there’s no financial risk. You can live in the beach house rent free for at least eight months, while you look for a place of your own. It’s only about 20 minutes to the hospital, 30 with bad traffic, but you might want something closer. I’ll pay for your moving costs and whatever it takes to look after your house in Georgia. I talked to Stella about it and she thinks the easiest thing will be to put you on the payroll of my company so you can charge expenses, but we’ll see what the accountant says. Anyhow, you won’t need to feel weird about it because you’ll be submitting expenses, all nice and legal with a 30 percent tax break.”

Leonard looks at Jim like he’s just sprouted horns, the cackling demon in the monster movie finally revealed. It’s not a friendly suggestion, not even pleasant woolgathering of the kind you have over coffee on your last day of vacation. It’s a calculated plan.

“God damn it, you--” He splutters, trying to find the words to express his outrage. “You are the most manipulative son of a bitch on God’s green earth. You have to control everything, don’t you? You have everything and everyone revolving around you like you’re the goddamn sun, never mind that they have lives of their own and feelings of their own--”

“Manipulative?” Jim interrupts, sounding perplexed but not offended. “How am I manipulating you? I’m making you an offer. I understand that risk is your least favorite thing on the planet, so I’m insulating you from the risk, that’s all. Try working as a high-paid emergency doc and one of the best hospitals in the country while drinking Napa wine in front of a pink sunset, your money back if not completely satisfied.”

“That’s all you’re offering? A house, a job, a California dream?”

“That’s all, what-- Oh.” Finally, Jim has the good grace to look a little sheepish. “Yeah, there’s-- I like you, that should be obvious. I’m not trying to get you to come out here because L.A. needs another handsome doctor. But I don’t want to promise anything else because it’s kind of soon, you know? And if things don’t work out that way, I still want to be friends.”

Leonard’s heart, that faithful old dog, responds as to a whistle from his master. But that doesn’t change the impossibility of it.

“You’re forgetting something. I have a child.”

“I’m not forgetting Jo; in fact, I hope I get to meet her soon. She’s almost 13, right? Pretty soon she’s not going to want to go out with Daddy every weekend. So you go home twice a month, take a red-eye there and back, stay two days. And on the third weekend she comes here and learns to surf and goes to Disneyland and meets her favorite pop star or whatever.”

“Her mother would never--”

“A Swiss nanny picks her up at her house. English, if you prefer, but something with an accent and a uniform. If there are legal things you need to work out, Stella can help you. People do it all the time, Len. It’s amazing how money can contract time and space. So don’t worry about the logistics; just ask yourself, ‘Is this something I want to do?’”

He’s never considered a more terrifying question. He opens his mouth and nothing comes out, and Jim just smiles and pushes the hair out of Leonard’s eyes.

“You’re right, it’s unfair to ask before coffee. Speaking of surfing, have you ever tried?”

+++++

Mid-afternoon they’re sitting on an endless beach on top of their boards, Leonard chilled and breathless and exhilarated. The waves are small so the crowds are sparse, mostly beginners like Leonard, although most of them don’t have a well-fitting wetsuit and a brand-new longboard the way Leonard does.

Although he’s always had decent physical skills, Leonard would never have believed he could surf. But Jim believed, and he’s learning to trust Jim’s opinion.

They stare at the blue for a while, and then Leonard says, “Why me?”

Jim gives a little shrug. “Why anybody, right? But you--you’re the most honest person I’ve ever met. I don’t mean that bullshit honesty where you give yourself permission to tell people they suck. I mean knowing who you are and accepting the consequences of your actions. After you fucked up your family life it would have made sense to run away. I probably would have. But you just dug in deeper. And you love your daughter and you still love your wife, that much is clear.”

“You like me because I love someone else?”

Jim ducks his head. “Because you can love someone. In spite of everything that happened.”

Leonard nods because there’s not that much he can say, and so he just keeps squinting into the sunshine. It’s soaking into his skin, making sweat prickle under his wetsuit, making him run his tongue over dry lips. Jim hands him a water bottle and he drinks deeply.

“Got a couple more runs in you?”

“Sure.”

Leonard hoists the heavy board, still awkward, and they splash out into the water together, Jim paddling ahead with sure, even strokes, shoulder muscles fluid and visible under his wetsuit. They turn their boards and bob at the break, creatures of land and sea. After a few minutes a little set comes in, knee-high waves that bring no fear to Leonard’s cautious soul.

“Wait,” Jim says, sculling backward as a wave goes under them. “Wait. Okay, NOW--paddle!”

Leonard paddles furiously until he feels transcendental click of catching the wave, the momentum transferring perfectly to the board, and he grips the sides and pushes himself up, planting his feet and holding his arms out the way Jim has taught him to do. He’s riding gravity and Jim is riding beside him, balanced enough to file his nails but enjoying Leonard’s enjoyment.

Leonard rides all the way into the beach because he can, and because he’s not going to get a better ride all day.

“Okay,” he says to Jim’s back, as they wrangle their boards. “Yes.”

“Yes what?” Jim says, helping Leonard untangle the leash.

“I’ll do it. I’ll move out here.”

Jim grins like he’s known it all along, the son of a bitch. “Good. That’s good. I’ll get Paul started on the arrangements.” He strides through the shallows and onto the beach, gesturing for Leonard to follow him. “Hey, let’s go up to the Point. I think you’re ready for bigger waves.”

Topanga Canyon (K/Mc, NC-17, AU) 1/2

2011-12-13T23:20:32Z

Summary: Sequel to Tallulah Falls; modern-day AU. Leonard visits Jim in California. What the sunshine started, Jim plans to finish.
Warnings: Explicit sex and language.
Length: 14K

Thanks to the adorable caitri for her wonderful and on-point beta-ing. I'm the one whose knowledge of Malibu and Hollywood is terrible; she knows everything.

+++++

Leonard gets off the plane from Atlanta with a wrinkled shirt, gritty eyes, and a sense of displacement that traveling the width of a continent isn’t enough to explain.

The concourse at LAX looks like the one he just left--identical stores selling fat and sugar and scandal--narcotizing crap to pacify people to the point that they don’t mind being stuffed into metal tubes and blasted across time zones. It’s overbright and surreal, not in a shiny futuristic way but in the way of most public spaces, full of ambling, distracted people with their eyes on electronic devices, bumping into each other to a soundtrack of televisions and canned music.

It could be that society’s going to hell in a handbasket, or it could just be that Leonard hates flying.

It’s not quite a full-blown phobia; he didn’t vomit or pray, but he did grip the armrests and look for excuses for his usually anti-social self to strike up a conversation with his seat mate, a financier on the way home from visiting her daughter at college. The outrageous cost of tuition and the frustrating indecisiveness of youth got Leonard as far as cornfield country, at which point the woman broke off conversation to watch the movie, which inevitably turned out to be Jim Kirk starring in some ensemble rom-com with a perky blonde set in an implausibly clean and uncrowded Manhattan. Leonard had spent the next hour fighting the urge to drink or lean over and say to the nice lady Coincidentally, I’m going to L.A. to fuck that guy.

At least, that’s what Leonard assumes is on the agenda. It’s been eight weeks since Jim Kirk arrived in Clarkesville, Georgia, on a mission to disturb Leonard’s peace. Leonard’s peace is now thoroughly disturbed, and he accepted an invitation to visit for the weekend without any idea of why his poor company would interest someone whose face appears in magazines opposite expensive perfume ads.

Leonard’s met just outside of security by an amiable, youngish driver in a blue blazer with a sign that says DR MCOY. The guy insists on taking Leonard’s bag and pulls around a few minutes later in a Town Car. Leonard climbs into the back, feeling conspicuous even though there’s a traffic-stopping blonde in an open Jeep just a few car lengths in front of them. The air smells like tropical rot without the tropical flowers: exhaust and sweat and uncollected garbage. The driver rolls up the windows and pumps up the air conditioning and the car cruises into mid-morning traffic, Leonard relieved he doesn’t have to go near the place again for four days. It’s been years since Leonard has been anywhere for a long weekend that isn’t an amusement park with Joanna.

He’s not sure what he was expecting from Los Angeles--sun-washed Jet Age buildings in bright Disney colors--but what he gets is an endless jumble of strip malls and concrete blocks, set on streets with names as familiar as those on a Monopoly board: Culver, Wilshire, Sunset. Acting studios are as common as donut shops and as run down, and just as Leonard’s thoughts crest in cynicism, the car glides out from a tunnel and he sees a slice of blue-green Pacific.

Sprawling seaside developments follow, charmless strip malls and yoga studios and parking lots, but Leonard’s hungry eyes stay fixed on the ocean. The water is part of his far-off retirement dreams, a vague idea of seeing Polynesia or buying a sailboat and heading for the Keys. Nothing signals not-real-life to Leonard’s brain as clearly as blue ocean. He begins to relax, sinking deep into the leather seat where the asses of thousands of businessmen have gone before.

After a few miles, the car turns right and starts to wind up into the dry hills. Leonard’s looked at the map and knows he’s near Malibu, but life here looks familiar and prosaic: trashcans and mailboxes, dog-walkers and joggers. After a couple of hairpin turns and a long climb, they pull up to an electric gate and the car is buzzed in. The house--Jim’s house--is close to the road, a collection of flat rooftops hidden by an ordinary hedge. The car and driver evaporate and Leonard’s visions of peacocks and Gloria Swanson are replaced by Jim, standing at the door in jeans and a T-shirt, barefoot, looking younger and more sweetly handsome than Leonard remembers.

“Hi,” Jim says.

“Hi yourself,” Leonard replies, with more of a bass growl than he intends.

Jim just laughs and looks pleased. “Shit, I’ve missed you.” He gives Leonard a peck on the cheek, no more than a dry brush of lips, and carries his bag inside. “Come on in,” he says, when Leonard hesitates like a vampire at the threshold. “Mi casa, and all that.”

The interior of the house is woody and modern and everything matches, but it’s not overwhelming. Then they step into the living room, Leonard’s jaw drops.

The house is perched on the edge of a canyon, and beyond the endless ridges of gray-green, the hazy crests of the Sierras rise. It’s so exactly what Leonard would have bought for himself--if he were young, rich, blessed and Californian--that his eyes water, and he feels an impulse either to hug Jim or punch him.

Jim stands there for a minute, following Leonard’s line of sight, and the slaps him on the shoulder, a little too hard.

“C’mon. Let’s get you settled.”

He leads Leonard down a spiral staircase to the second floor and then into a pleasant room with a single bed. He plops Leonard’s bag on the bed and gestures around like he’s the bellboy angling for a tip.

“Your own balcony, your own coffee maker. A door that locks! See, I’m a gentleman.”

“It’s nice,” Leonard says. The truth is that it’s nicer than any hotel room he’s stayed in. “Do you mind if I wash up?”

“Sure. Bathroom’s through there, towels are clean. Can’t really say the same for their owner.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing the doors lock.”

Jim gives a half-laugh and runs a hand over the nape of his neck. There’s an awkward pause where Leonard doesn’t want to start undressing, but doesn’t want to seem uncomfortable with undressing. The elephant in Leonard’s room is the degree to which he’s here on some kind of transcontinental booty call, summoned out of Georgia to give Jim a break from a monotonous procession of perfect, tanned bodies.

“I’m doing some accounting stuff--you know, fun with spreadsheets,” Jim says finally, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Take your time. I’ll be in the dining room.”

Leonard waits a few beats until he hears Jim’s bare feet retreating, and then closes the door.

His black nylon bag sits in the middle of an expanse of glossy cherrywood, looking as cheap and out of place as Leonard feels. He rifles around for his toiletry case, eyes roaming the room. It’s decorated with black-and-white photos, same as the living room--a bicycle abandoned in a cornfield, an old gas station with dark clouds behind it; pretentious arty shit, Leonard wants to say, except that he likes Jim and wants to believe that if Jim would pick this house, he’d at least tell the decorator what to put on his walls.

Leonard showers and puts on a clean shirt and linen pants and sandals, and emerges feeling like he’s shed his East Coast skin. Jim hooks an arm around his waist and pulls him close, something between a hug and a nuzzle, as if he’s a returning visitor, an old friend.

“Get anything to eat on the plane?”

“Something that wanted to be a sandwich when it grew up.” Jim grins and waves for Leonard to follow him.

Jim’s kitchen is huge and shiny as a magazine, a reliquary for high-end appliances he doubts ever get used. Jim opens the double doors of the fridge and starts to rummage, bringing out a random assortment of cheese and cold cuts and things in takeout containers. He grabs a loaf of decent-looking bread and begins hacking at it with a bread knife, spraying crumbs on the floor, which is shiny and pristine. Leonard infers a maid.

“So, how’s Jo?” He shoves a piece of bread in his mouth and hands another to Leonard.

“Fine. Looking forward to summer.”

“How’s the hospital?”

“Understaffed.”

Jim snorts. “Especially with you gone. Good. It’s good for them to know how much they need you.”

“Everything’s got an angle with you, doesn’t it?” Leonard says, realizing too late the source of the Things are quiet, too quiet feeling that’s been bugging him since he arrived.

Jim frowns and chews, not as if he’s mad, but as if he’s trying to puzzle something out. He swallows and reaches out a hand to squeeze Leonard’s arm.

“I understand this is weird for you, but it doesn’t have to be. I’m not expecting epic sex on the granite countertop in the next five minutes. You’re here because I want your company, that’s all.”

“I know,” Leonard says, wanting to add, That’s what so weird about it.

“Right. Good. Then grab some of this shit and let’s go outside.” Jim hooks his fingers around the necks of a couple of cold beers and leads Leonard back down the spiral staircase, two stories down. Leonard’s relieved to see that the house isn’t actually perched, half-floating, on a cliff face, but has a side door leading out to a leafy patio. There are stone pavers across a shallow fish pond and, at the rear, a small but artful waterfall, which crumbles Leonard’s resolve to stay cool about the obvious wealth oozing out of every well-placed rock.

“I’ve never known anybody who owned his own waterfall.”

“I know, right? It has a switch, isn’t that wild?” He spreads the food out on a redwood table hands Leonard one of the beers. “The thing is, five years ago I was living in this shithole one-bedroom in Westlake with two other guys. There were, like, whole generations of mice that grew up in our closet. We figured they wouldn’t go near the kitchen because they were afraid of the roaches. The guy next door--his main form of exercise was screaming, mostly in the middle of the night. It smelled of garbage and everything was horrible except that the swimming pool was immaculately clean, like they’d just cleaned up after finding a body. That freaked me out so much I never went in it. And now I have my own waterfall.” His tone is matter of fact, neither reverent nor incredulous at his good fortune.

Leonard snorts and accepts a takeout container of some kind of noodles. “What about the mice? Do you still see them?”

“We hang out sometimes.” Jim takes a pull of the beer and maybe catches Leonard staring at his lips. It’s hard not to, and not only because Leonard is freshly impressed with how good-looking Jim is, au naturel in ratty old clothes, licking cheese spread off his fingers. The beer and the hot, filtered sun are relaxing him, along with Jim’s relentless normality in the face of being a guy who owns a waterfall.

“And this--” Leonard glances around. “This just kind of happened?”

“You haven’t been working Google very hard, have you? It’s an exciting story of sheer, magical luck that gets more exciting every time I tell it.”

“Then it should be plenty exciting by now. Can I hear it?”

Jim mimes having his arm twisted. “If you insist. Okay, short version: one of the roommates in the mouse apartment was a capital-A-Actor, always going on auditions, and I used to give him shit because he never landed anything, even though Yale Drama School, Actors Studio, etcetera etcetera. I bet him $100 I could get a callback if I came to one of his auditions, and I didn’t just get a callback, I got the role. Then one of the supporting actors went into rehab, and the director had already decided he liked me, so he gave me the part.”

“You were a natural, obviously.”

“Uh-huh,” Jim says, taking it not as a compliment but a statement of fact. “That was the easy part. Son of a bitch never gave me the $100, though.” He points at Leonard with a piece of celery. “Your turn. Tell me about the shittiest place you ever lived.”

“Oh.” Leonard runs a hand through his hair. “The house Jocelyn and I had in grad school, in New Orleans. A one-bedroom shotgun that smelled of mold in a sketchy neighborhood. When I tell people about it they practically piss themselves over how cute and authentic it must have been, but I can tell you, having people walk through your bedroom to get to the kitchen gets old.” Even in this otherwordly sunlight, Leonard can remember the gurgle of the old hot water heater, always on the verge of flooding the house. Jocelyn, raised in hygienic suburban luxury, had been such a good sport about it--they both had, because with a kind of anticipatory nostalgia, they’d known things would get better. “We counted once--we had furniture from eight different decades. None of it would have made it past your decorator, I guarantee.”

Jim slides his chair back and props his bare, dusty feet up on the table. “What decorator?”

“You did all this yourself?”

“Mostly. I had buyers helping me, but I knew what I wanted. I waited a year for this house while the owners dicked me around, thinking they could get more out of me because I was young and dumb.”

“And yet, no ocean view.”

“Pfft. And be stacked on top of a bunch of other rich assholes? Pass.”

It seems odd to Leonard, because he’s got Jim pegged as a social animal, someone whose energy demands an outlet, or at least an audience.

He’s contemplating this when a staccato burst of rumba music almost scares him out of his chair. Jim hauls his phone out of his back pocket, looks at the caller ID, mouths sorry, and answers it.

“Hey.” There’s a long pause filled by the tinny little voice on the phone. “Well, shit--it would have to be this week. No, no, we’ll make it happen. So what do you think we should do?” There’s a much longer pause, during which Leonard gets bored with the one-sided business conversation involving contracts and percentages and watches a buff-colored lizard stalk an insect across the sun-warmed stone. Alien birds--or at least, birds Leonard doesn’t recognize--come to drink out of the pond; a few seem to have designs on the koi.

After a while, Jim gives Leonard the just one more minute sign. “Thanks, Stel. No, I appreciate it. We still on for tomorrow night? Good, so is he. Okay, ciao, bella.” He plunks down the phone. “Sorry. I had to take that--it was my attorney. We’re working on a deal, and of course the assholes from the studio just flew back from Hong Kong or something and are ready to work. Shouldn’t get in the way of our weekend, although I may have to take some calls.”

“What kind of deal?”

“Well, it’s--” He pauses. “If it happens, it’ll be pretty big.” He gives Leonard a furtive glance and kicks at the table leg.

It’s unfair, but Leonard is faintly pissed at the lack of trust. “Are you worried about telling me? I don’t know a soul in this town. You could tell me you were fucking three goats on alternate Tuesdays and I’d have no idea who to tell.”

Jim’s lips curl. “Yeah, I know. Excess of caution. The thing is that Paradigm is offering me a six-picture deal for a shitload of money.”

“How big a shitload?”

“A hundred million--nice round number.”

“A hundred million dollars?” Leonard brain struggles briefly, trying to imagine football fields and bills lined up to the moon.

“Yeah, and they’re trying to dick me down to $95. Typical. They want to buy me and have me and show me off around town, but they don’t want people to think they’ve lost their heads.”

“But let me guess--it’s not about the money.”

“Oh, so you have read some of my interviews. No, it’s totally about the money. Six pictures, and at least four of them are going to be total pieces of shit. But I’m going to show up at six fucking thirty every day with a smile on my face, and I’m going to promote the hell out of every single one, and tell the perky morning show hosts what candy-coated geniuses those good people at Paradigm are.” During this speech, Jim’s begun fidgeting. He pulls his other foot off the table and parks his hands on the arms of his chair, as if he’s ready to spring.

“And it’s worth it? Having to promote the hell out of bunch of movies you know are crap?”

“So tell me--how much is a person’s life worth?”

“I’m a doctor. You know what I’m supposed to say: that you can’t put a value on a human life.” Leonard wishes he lived in a world where that were true, but it isn’t Black Rock, where glossy posters and the BrightIdea of the Month put a shiny patina on corporate bean counting.

Jim nods. “Yeah, well. I looked it up. An American life is worth about $7 million. Most people don’t consider that because they don’t live and work in an environment where it matters. Here, you know exactly how much you’re worth, and it’s like the number is always floating over your head, where everybody else can see it--the maitre d’, the valet parking guy, anybody you take a meeting with.”

“And that’s good?”

“Good?” Jim gives a twitchy little shrug. “It’s just the way things are. At least the rules are clear. I sign that contract, I’m worth $100 million, and I have the biggest cock in the room, until somebody gets $101.” He leans back in his chair. “So, what do you think? Too high or too low?”

“You know what kind of answer that question deserves.” Leonard knows, but he finds he can’t give it. He’s heard the truisms about actors’ fragile egos, but that hardly seems to be Jim’s problem. If anything, it’s his ruthless objectivity that gives Leonard pause.

Before the silence gets uncomfortable, Jim busts out the just-kidding grin and screeches his chair away from the table. “But enough about me. What do you want to do this afternoon? I thought we’d stay local; Friday afternoon traffic in the city is a bitch. Maybe a walk in the canyon, or on the beach?”

“Beach,” Leonard says, almost before he can finish.

+++++

Jim’s four-car garage contains three: an SUV, a hybrid econobox, and a black sports car that looks like it’s been polished with $1000 bills.

“Guess which one I bought after I signed on to my first big picture?” Jim pops the locks on the sports car and gestures for Leonard to get in. “It’s a horrible cliche, I know,” he says, as Leonard slides his rear end across the immaculate pale grey leather. “But it’s fun to drive, and it reminds me of old times. Also, if I want to act like an asshole on the road, at least I’m feeding into the right stereotypes.”

The interior looks like the cockpit of a fighter jet and has rampant horses on every available surface.

“Buckle up,” Jim says. Leonard thinks of the canyon curves with trepidation.

“It’s not my dream to die in a celebrity car crash. Just so you know.”

It turns out, though, that Jim is a skilled and reasonably cautious driver, taking the turns at less than race-car speed, letting Leonard’s gaze drift away from the horizon and toward Jim’s long fingers wrapped around the gear shift. It’s masculine admiration of a stereotypical masculine skill. Leonard’s conditioned himself for so long to flinch mentally from any kind of attraction to the male that he has to remind himself that he’s 3000 miles from anybody whose shock is going to have a measurable impact on his life.

“Top down?” Jim asks.

“Hell yeah.”

“Do it--it’s that button, there.” Leonard pushes the button and the car performs a mechanical striptease, pieces of the roof rotating and folding as the wind begins to whip through his hair. Leonard laughs in incredulous delight.

“Shit,” Jim says, catching his eye. “I’ve got to get you on the racetrack some time.” Jim reaches onto the dash and grabs a ball cap and a pair of Ray Bans, which he proceeds to put on while driving one-handed. Leonard, glimpsing blue Pacific from behind the next curve, barely minds.

They park in a public lot of Highway 1. Jim pulls his backpack out of the trunk and says, “I don’t expect there to be photographers, but if there are, just be cool. Don’t look at them, don’t punch them. And no PDA.”

“‘PDA’? What are you, twelve?”

“No, I just mean--”

“I know what you mean. No guy-touching where your adoring public can see.” Leonard slams the door a little harder than he intends. On the one hand, Jim plainly has physical contact on his mind, which in Leonard’s mind is good because things have been headed in a buddyish direction. On the other, it makes Jim’s exhortations to courage and sexual freedom ring a little hollow, but then Leonard has unsalvageably romantic notions and Jim has a $100 million contract being dangled over his head.

They walk around the headlands, and it’s perfection of sun and wind. Leonard puts on his sunglasses and opens his shirt by a few decorous buttons.

Jim gives a wolf whistle under his breath. “Go on, take it off. You’re begging for a tan.”

Leonard waits until they’re walking down the trail to the beach before slipping his shirt off and wrapping it around his waist. Jim gives a smile that bares his teeth and lets Leonard walk past him so that Jim can walk behind.

“Careful, that’s circumstantial evidence.”

“Of what? My good taste?”

“Your possible interest in--” Leonard lowers his voice “--you know.”

“Is that what you think I meant?” Jim trots at double time so that he can talk over Leonard’s shoulder, closer to his ear. “I don’t give a flying fuck if I get photographed with men, women or circus animals, but you won’t thank me if your photo shows up on some skeezeball website with Jim’s jaunt with mystery hunk under it and an arrow pointing to your crotch.”

Leonard feels his face get warm, and not just from the sun. Jim grins back at him and pulls off his ratty T shirt.

“You wearing sunblock?” Leonard asks, trying not to stare.

“Nah.”

“You should, you know. Your skin type is melanoma central. In fact, you should let me look at a couple of those freckles when we get back.”

“See that you do,” Jim says. “Very thoroughly.”

The last 20 vertical feet is by way of a steel staircase traversing rock. At the bottom, Leonard kicks off his shoes and feels his calf muscles bunch as he takes the first few steps across the sand. The feeling goes from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, familiar and long missed; the last time he was at the beach was more than two years ago, a medical conference on Hilton Head.

The beach isn’t crowded, even on this perfect, early-summer day; there are readers in beach chairs, couples lounging on blankets, kids playing in the sand. One of them kicks a ball toward the water and Jim jogs ahead and blocks it, kicking it back a few feet past the kid so the kid has to run. The kid squares up like a little professional and returns the kick, and within seconds the kid’s parents are whipping out their cell phones, getting ready to text OMG little Aidan on the beach with JIM KIRK!! to everyone they’ve ever met. Leonard wonders briefly if it’s part of the act, loving on animals and children, a regular guy in spite of the Italian sportscar and the perfect lips, and then feels bad about thinking that, because Jim’s clearly having an uncomplicated good time.

“You ever thought about getting a dog?” Leonard asks.

Jim cocks his head, considering. “I had one when I was a kid, but we had to get rid of it. I promised myself I’d get another one some day, but not now. I’m gone for months at a time, and I wouldn’t want to leave it alone. What about you?”

“Where I live, if a dog doesn’t hunt, you might as well dye it pink and carry it around in a handbag.” Leonard makes a sidetrack to get closer to the water. “What about kids?”

“Haven’t decided. I think I’d like to practice with the dog.”

A second later, Leonard is ankle-deep in a foaming wave. “God damn, that’s cold,” Leonard says, feeling things shrivel.

“I tell that to all the East Coasters, and they never believe me,” Jim says, extending a cautious toe out from the dry sand. “I don’t know why--under the spell of those beach party movies or something.”

“You should talk. You look like you could have starred in one.” Jim looks the part, fashionably retro with the Wayfarers and baggy shorts blowing back against long, pale legs.

“Only if I can play the bad influence--you know, the kid with slicked-back hair and a motorcycle who smokes and gropes the lead girl, and then the girl slaps him and realizes she really loves the lead boy.”

“You’re too young to have seen those movies.”

“Oh, no, I did, on late-night cable, when I was a kid. I fucking loved them--everybody was having fun and they got to surf and build fires with no adults around. That was paradise as far as I was concerned. Those movies gave me the idea to come out here, in a way.”

“You’re not from California?”

“Nope, Midwest.”

“Really?” Leonard has a hard time imagining Jim being landlocked. “What state?”

“Iowa.” Jim seems more interested in turning over a dead crab with his toe.

“Where in Iowa?”

“Doesn’t matter, it’s all the same.” He raises his eyes to the water and they turn electric blue in its reflection. “Look, dolphins!”

Part 2 >>

The Gardens of the Desert Master Post

2011-11-03T22:34:19Z

http://www.mediafire.com/?nhw4tpz441b6bTitle: Gardens of the Desert
Author: lindmere and merisunshine36
Artist: ladymac111
Mixer: nextian
Series: ST XI
Character/Pairing(s): Joanna McCoy, Kirk, McCoy, Pike, Spock/Uhura/OFC, Winona/Sarek
Rating: PG-13 for violence and language
Word Count: 27,000
Warnings: Secondary character death, violence, discussion paralleling the autism debate

Summary: Twenty years after Nero changed the course of history forever, the residents of New Vulcan risk becoming a casualty in the struggle for power between a still-reeling Federation and the Romulans, who have just discovered how to harness the power of red matter.

Author's Notes:Tremendous thanks to our wonderful beta reader, sail_aweigh, for getting things ship shape!
This story is a sequel to The Light of Distant Skies, although all you need to know from the first installment is that Spock is married to Uhura as well as a Vulcan woman in order to satisfy cultural and political pressure, and that they are involved with the Teslau project, an initiative designed to increase the Vulcan birthrate in order to stave off population decline.

Thanks so much to ladymac111 for the gorgeous, sensitively drawn portrait of Spock/Uhura/Saiehnn family. Don't miss it!
Big thanks also to nextian for the marvelous mix, which can be found here.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

On AO3

The Gardens of the Desert, Part 4

2011-11-03T22:17:48Z

Title: Gardens of the Desert
Authors: lindmere and merisunshine36
Artist: ladymac111
Mixer: nextian
Beta: sail_aweigh
Series: ST XI
Character/Pairing(s): Joanna McCoy, Kirk, McCoy, Pike, Spock/Uhura/OFC, Winona/Sarek
Rating: PG-13 for violence and language
Word Count: 27,000
Warnings: Secondary character death, violence, discussion paralleling the autism debate

The room clears out quickly. Everyone sets off in twos and threes, energized by a renewed sense of purpose now that they have something to do rather than just sit around and make aimless speculation. Joanna gives Uhura a jaunty salute before the conference room door slides shut behind her and Kirk, a good an indication as any that she's looking forward to the work ahead of her.

Eventually, Uhura and Spock are the the only two left in the room, a move she assumes was deliberate on his part since he now has a not-insignificant task on the horizon. She takes a moment to hang onto the silence that fills the room as it empties out; they haven't had much of that since they relocated to the colony, what with Spock spending most of his time navigating the bureaucracy of the colony and Uhura spending her time at the Teslau clinic with the children.

Uhura starts a little when she feels his fingers come into contact with the back of her hand, sending a curl of warmth into the pit of her stomach just like always. She adjusts her chair so she's facing him directly.

"This won't be over in a day or two," she muses. "If they can't find a way to pin the flux compression generator on the Romulans, they'll find something else."

His face takes on that preternaturally composed state, the one that's too perfect, and she knows that he's keeping information from her. She doesn't press him for it.

In the end, he just curls his fingers around hers, lets out an exhalation of breath so faint it can hardly be called a sigh. "Indeed. The destruction of my home planet has knocked the political balance of the entire Federation from its course. It will take a great many years before it is righted again."

She foresees the conversation wandering off into a direction she never intended, one full of philosophizing and reminiscence. It's a habit he picked up from so many years with Jim, the way they follow each other around in ever-wider circles of rhetoric yet somehow wind up at the same conclusion. Uhura, on the other hand, has always been direct with him from the start.

"My reassignment period is coming up next month," she says, her chest hollow with anticipation. They haven't been apart from each other for more than a few months in years, a span of time that has narrowed to days since the twins arrived. "I'm going to offer my services to Jim on whatever vessel he's posted to next, if he'll have me. It's been ages since I've done any serious work with Romulan dialects but I'm sure I can pick it up again if I..." Uhura catches herself dragging her fingers nervously back and forth across the touch screen, and clenches them into a fist. "I can't stay here, on this planet, anymore," she finishes in a rush.

I'm going insane is what she really wants to say, or maybe even something ridiculous and emotional like, I miss humans. But she bites her tongue. She's stated her intentions; that will have to be good enough.

"You are aware of the shortage of labor on the colony at present," he begins, carefully not meeting her eye. "The people of Uzh Shi'kahr place a great value on your services. As do I."

Uhura snorts. "Yeah, I'm sure they'll all miss how I corrupt the youth with my Human education methods." She tilts back in the chair and stares at the rivets in the bulkhead above her until Spock reclaims her attention by saying her name at a volume so low that she can barely hear. The disappointed look he gives her makes her uncomfortable and flushed with warmth all at once. It's as if they've been going back in time instead of forward, and they're back in the hanger again, when their tempers ran as hot as the attraction felt for one another.

"Saiehnn and I do not hold this opinion. Vesko would attest to the same, as would others, I assure you."

"Okay, yes, you're right." She pushes her chair back, away from the table and away from her obstinate husband. "But it doesn't change my decision. You've found a place that fulfills you, Spock. Don't I deserve the same?"

Spock settles back into his chair, his mouth tight around the corners. He doesn't respond.

+++++

The VIP quarters on the Carson aren’t as luxurious as those on a starship, but they’re enough to make Joanna feel that she shouldn’t touch anything--anything except the irresistible bed with its green-and-gold velveteen bedspread. She dangles her feet off the edge while she talks to Saiehnn who, true to form, has found the stiffest and most upright chair in the room. It’s delicious and frightening to be alone with her--locked away with her, in fact.

“I do not understand what progress we can hope to make before Spock reconstitutes the device,” Saiehnn says, though her presence speaks louder than her skepticism. “Admiral Kirk is no doubt supervising the investigation and interrogation of the crew.”

“Of course. But that doesn’t mean we can’t go through the mental exercise, especially since we know as much about the political situation on New Vulcan as anybody here. A Romulan device was beamed down from this ship--a ship with no Romulans on board--to damage but not destroy the Teslau Project building. Who got it on board, how was it powered up, and how was it beamed down?”

“Inductive reasoning.” Saiehnn seems to be placated. “Very well. You propose to work backward, hypothesizing a sequence of events, thus narrowing the possibilities.”

“It’s that or play chess.” Saiehnn gives her what she swears is a skeptical look. “You’re right; I’m definitely better at conversation.”

+++++

Uhura has met plenty of worms and traitors in her 20-year career, and Engineer Kanu is her least favorite kind: self justifying, passive aggressive, and worst of all incompetent--so poorly trained by his masters that he veers between an implausible cover story and flat denial depending on who’s talking to him.

“You say you received orders to charge the flux compression device and beam it down, but you won’t say from whom.” Uhura keeps her eyes focused on her PADD. “You say it never occurred to you not to follow these orders, even though you were delivering a device with enormous potential destructive energy to a civilian facility.”

“Yes,” Kanu says, pouting into his crossed arms.

“You’re either a complete idiot or lying. Since they don’t let complete idiots in the engine rooms of starships, I’m going with the latter.”

Jim moves into Kanu’s field of vision. He’s been pacing with his head down, listening while Uhura interrogates Kanu, mostly quiet, and giving the man serious jitters if he has any brains at all. Jim’s not intimidating in the conventional sense; he carries very little physical threat in his thin frame, and he’s made a career out of being underestimated. But once he’s set on a course of action, he’s relentless in its pursuit.

“He won’t protect you, you know.” Jim’s voice is hard and a little too loud; the corners of Kanu’s eyes twitch.

“I don’t know who you mean.”

“He was willing to risk the lives of innocent people,” Jim says, as if he hasn’t heard. “If he can do that, he can throw you away without a second thought.” Jim catches her eye, his own barely visible between narrow slits of dark lashes. She has no idea who Jim’s referring to, but she doesn’t need to.

“He’s right, you know. I’ve seen it happen before. But Starfleet believes in second chances. If you turn him in--”

“Starfleet?” Kanu says in disbelief. “It’s Starfleet that I’m trying to protect, from the likes of both of you. I don’t get it--I was raised on stories of the Enterprise; it’s one of the reasons I came out here in the first place. But now look at you.” He flicks a glance at Jim. “Driving a school bus for scientists. And you? Holding babies for the Vulcan. Shit, if that’s what 20 years of--”

Uhura doesn’t get to hear any more of Kanu’s editorializing because Jim gives him a good whack on the base of the skull, hard enough to deliver a point but not to damage.

“Commander Uhura is a recipient of the Medal of Valor, and you’re an asshole who’s about to do 20 for treason.” Jim says. “Apologize to her.”

Kanu glares at him, slightly cross-eyed. “I won’t-”

“You will.” Jim looks down on the crown of his head from his full six feet in height, eyes cold. “Because you’re going to need all the friends you can get, and even though I’m pretty sure I hate you, you could be useful to me. More useful than you are to him.”

“Who?” The contempt in Kanu’s voice is starting to wear thin.

“Admiral Cartwright.”

It’s all Uhura can do to stifle a gasp; Kanu, less guarded, lets his chin drop and gapes at Kirk while his brain recalculates its limited options.

“Commander Uhura.” His voice is flat, braver than a mumble, but without the bluster Jim’s just thwacked out of him. “I didn’t mean to imply--”

“Oh yes, you did.” She gets up, kicks her chair away, and stands shoulder to shoulder with Jim. “You know what would make me feel a whole lot better? If you told us everything. Right now.”

+++++

“But assuming hardcore anti-Romulans in Starfleet staged the whole thing, what would be the point--to get rid of the colony? What kind of threat could it possibly be?”

Joanna is lying back on the huge bed staring at the ceiling, because it’s less distracting than staring at Saiehnn, who’s unwound far enough to remove the outer layer of her complicated dress.

“Does the rest of the Federation truly understand the difference between the Romulan colonists and the Star Empire?”

“You mean, is one bunch of Romulans as good as another when it comes to stirring up hostility?” Joanna rolls onto her side. “Do you think anyone at Starfleet’s really that cold-hearted--attacking and injuring pregnant women to make the Romulans look bad?”

“Much can be justified in self defense. Nero believed he was saving Romulus.”

“I know,” Joanna says, and feels pointlessly guilty, the way she does every time Saiehnn alludes to her past. “I’d just like to think better of the Federation.”

The silence that stretches out should be uncomfortable for many reasons, but it isn’t. Saiehnn walks to the viewport and looks down on New Vulcan, beige and featureless and moonless, and Joanna can’t resist any longer. She doesn’t move from the bed; it’s easier to drift on the unreality of a post-adrenaline crash, the weirdness of her surroundings, and Saiehnn’s face, glowing in the ship’s running lights.

“How do you do it, Saiehnn?” she asks softly. “Why aren’t you ever bitter or angry about what happened? And how do you face an entire life of knowing you’ll never get back what you had--” Joanna swallows. “Of never getting what you want?”

Saiehnn turns to face her, eyes sharp and unflinching. “If you believe I will never receive it, then you are clearly wrong about what I wish. Or perhaps you believe you can provide it yourself.”

Even in her most sentimental moments, Joanna has never deceived herself, although it makes what follows a confession instead of a declaration. “Of course not. I just want to know that you’re happy, in whatever way you can be. That it isn’t just duty that keeps you with Spock and Uhura. And I want you to know--” It takes all of Joanna’s strength not to reach out to Saiehnn. “I want you to know that your happiness is important to me, if that helps at all. Because I care about you. Because I love you.”

Whatever’s in Saiehnn’s eyes at that moment, it isn’t contempt.

“Yes,” she says. “I know.”

“You do.” It doesn’t matter whether Saiehnn is a telepath; she’s a keen observer. Joanna would have noticed, if she hadn’t been so enamored of her selfless, doomed love.

“Yes. I have observed for some time that you sought out my company. I have also discussed it with Nyota, who received confirmation from your father.”

“You discussed it?” Joanna’s mortification is transmuting into anger. “Little Jo McCoy has a crush on Spock and Uhura’s wife, whatever shall we do? Like that?”

“You are young and far from home.” Saiehnn’s tone verges on sympathetic, which makes it worse. “Human emotions are malleable at such times. As it caused me no injury, I saw no reason to take action, except that I anticipated that our parting might cause you distress.”

“What parting?”

“The Teslau project will in all likelihood be discontinued. The results have been equivocal at best, and the attack will focus attention on it that is unlikely to be positive.”

“But that’s unfair!” Joanna knows how she sounds, how it makes a lie of her protestations to maturity, but it is unfair that on one of the first days of her life that she felt competent and useful that everything should be pulled away. “What about the kids--who’s going to teach them? What about the parents? What about you?”

Saiehnn’s gaze drops, only for a second; it’s fortunate that Joanna has become such a keen student of Saiehnn’s body language, or she might have missed it. “I am sure I will find other ways to serve the cause of Restoration.”

“God damn it.” There’s a stronger curse in her throat, but more than a year on Vulcan has given her a built-in filter, even now. “You can’t convince me there’s nothing you want for yourself. I don’t care if it’s not me, but it must be something. Nobody is that selfless.”

Saiehnn opens her mouth as if she’d like to argue but realizes it would be paradoxically egotistical. “If I wish anything, it is to have freedom of choice. Unfortunately, I do not; the decisions that govern my life were made when I was still a child.”

“But who says you have to follow them?” Joanna aches to touch her, to let her feel the force of Joanna’s own desires and ambitions--half-formed, unclear, full of fruitless human longing as they are. “A baby’s obligations to its parents stop the day it’s born. That’s what my father says.”

“It is not so with us. If we reject the legacy of all that is gone before, then we are no longer Vulcan.”

“Then be something else.”

Saiehnn looks truly startled.

“Human malleability is indeed remarkable. Yet you cannot be a rock or a tree. Nor can you be a Vulcan.”

“I think I could if I wanted to. I’m pretty sure Rh’vaurek could. At least he was willing to try.” Thinking of Rh’vaurek blasted body, Joanna summons the courage to take Saiehnn’s hand in her own. It’s hot and dry, alien and lovely. “I want to have his courage. I want to be around people who don’t believe in limitations. I thought you were one of them, Saiehnn. I still think so, but I want you to want things for yourself.”

Saiehnn does not remove her hand; instead, the fingers curl lightly around Joanna’s own. “There is much that I would wish to be different, if I could freely choose.”

Joanna feels tears start to her eyes; it’s that beautiful, and Saiehnn is radiant in her indecision. “There,” she says, stroking her hand lightly. “It really isn’t that hard.”

+++++

“Cartwright.” Uhura keeps repeating his name, hoping it will start to make sense. She remembers him as an intense and dedicated captain, a military prodigy of an admiral, hero of a dozen skirmishes with the Klingons. “Did you guess, or did you know?”

Jim’s sitting in one conference chair with his legs stretched out in another, a flap of his admiral’s tunic undone, like a partygoer after a long night. “Kanu served with him on the Bonaventure. That’s how these things usually go if you’re not a career rat; bonds forged in battle, and all that. And Cartwright hasn’t been in my fan club since I backed the Antarion Treaty. You have to admire it, in a way; either I’d be here to validate that the Romulan colonists were behind the attack, or I’d trace the device back to this ship and look like an idiot for letting it happen on my own vessel. Lance was always a hell of a strategist. Now I’m going to ram all that strategy up his tailpipe and make sure he never puts on a Starfleet uniform again.”

“So that’s the plan? Turn everything over to Starfleet?” Uhura’s perched on the edge of the conference table, swing her legs back and forth to dispel what’s left of the adrenaline. “How can you be sure the conspiracy doesn’t go up any higher than Cartwright?”

“I can’t; hence the vulgar analogy. You put a stick of dynamite up a tailpipe, the whole fucking thing explodes.” He kicks at the table leg. “God fucking damn it. Chris Pike picked a hell of a time to die. I have no idea what’s going on in San Francisco any more.”

“You don’t think he--” Uhura pauses, because Jim’s feelings about Pike, while not exactly sentimental, are at least familial.

“I wish I could say I had no doubts, that I know he’d never authorize hurting civilians. I don’t want to think he could. He believed in the loyal opposition; shit, he even wanted me to take the Excelsior, so I could keep on charming everyone with my borderline-insubordinate ways.”

“And why didn’t you?” Uhura’s heard the story before from his own lips, but she wonders if the answer has changed.

Jim gives a snort and looks sullen, recalling a side of him only the Bridge crew ever saw, the enthusiasm that was only ever depressed by death and betrayal, both of which he’s had in the last few days.

“I didn’t trust myself. In life and death situations, the possibilities narrow to where the ethics get pretty fucking clear. But playing the long game, I could have ended up like Cartwright. Whatever it was that Pike had that kept his head on straight, I don’t have that.” He gives a tight smile. “Crazy, unpredictable Jim Kirk, controlled chaos. I’m a useful tool in the right hands, but I’m not a leader. Not in the way that I’d have to be.”

Uhura considers her next words carefully, because when Jim’s in one of these moods he’s as likely to shut down as take a swing at the person sitting next to him. She half wishes that Spock were here, but Spock’s always been indulgent with Jim, assuming with Vulcan naivete that Jim’s moods were a necessary side effect of his massive enthusiasms.

“I think that’s an excuse.” She keeps her voice neutral, as if they’re discussing the Federation elections. “You believe Pike had some kind of magical moral compass he could consult? There’s no such thing. It’s hard for everyone to know they have to live with the consequences of their decisions.”

His brows lower; he’s skeptical, maybe a little annoyed, but he’s not angry. “Hmm. You arranged it pretty well for yourself, though, didn’t you? Teaching, raising the next generation; unimpeachable, even if it bores you out of your damn mind.”

“You think I’m holding babies for Spock, too?” She aims an almost-not-mock kick at him. “I’m an outworlder married to one of Vulcan’s favorite sons, raising two kids with three parents on a planet where the biggest luxury item is water. If you think that’s easy, excuse me, but up yours, Captain.” Her scowl slides into a grin. “I mean, up yours, Admiral.”

“It’s okay, old habits die hard.” Jim’s looking a bit more cheerful himself. “I didn’t mean to imply your life was easy, it’s just--the narrowed options thing, you know.”

“I know what you meant. I won’t deny it; New Vulcan is insular and preoccupied with survival. The Vai Ba’Tak may spend time debating whether k’thia permits the consumption of monocellular organisms, but everyone else is more worried about whether Councillor Sepan is going to vote for a second Market Day. Basically, New Vulcan is a small town populated by obsessive-compulsive geniuses with photographic memories. And I won’t deny that I miss this--or at least, that I miss all of us serving together. I’m not sure the Starfleet I remember exists any more.”

“Me, neither.” He gets to his feet and offers her a hand as she slides off the desk, feeling the cold metal against the back of her thighs, a sense memory from another time. “Only one way to find out; throw the grenade and see what floats to the surface.”

She lets her hand rest on his shoulder for a moment longer. “For a suspected pacifist, you sure are full of grisly metaphors.”

“For a schoolteacher, you sure like an excuse to strap on your phaser.” He means it as a good-natured joke, at least until he gets a good look at Uhura’s face.

“I want to ask, you know,” he says quietly. “I want to ask like you wouldn’t believe, for you to come with me. But it wouldn’t be fair, would it? To so many people, but especially to you.”

It won’t hurt just to hear what he has to say, she tells herself, and that’s how she knows she’s already made the decision. But for her to live with herself, he’s got to prove to her that Starfleet needs her as much as--more--than the Colony, than her family.

“Go ahead,” she says. “Take your best shot.”

Jim grins, warming to the challenge. It turns out that what Starfleet has to offer is quite a lot.

+++++

South of Uzh Shi'Kahr, the low hills give way to a flat-bottomed valley, a vestige of a time when there was running water on this planet. As light refracts through the hotter air close to the burning rock, it appears silver and slick, reflective, like still water. Like the still surface of the Voroth Sea, Spock thinks, and wonders--not for the first time--if this is why his father selected the location for his home. The family villa at Raal was a masterpiece of classical architecture, blending seamlessly into the red rock, uniting sea, earth and sky. It is gone now, of course, along with the rock and sea. Only the sunlight remains, the visible radiance of 40 Eridani reflecting off its two remaining planets.

Spock has long since ceased trying to prevent himself from falling into these well-worn patterns of thought. It is easier to let them run their course, to pass through his mind and out into figurative space, as he does during meditation. For a moment he allows himself to be fully present in the memory of Raal, to contemplate what he had and did not have, during his brief life on that planet.

“My son.” Sarek appears in the doorway, holding two glasses of ka’sak. Spock takes one from his hand and raises it in a gesture of respect.

“Health and long life to you, father.” They each drink and Spock feels a familiar discomfort settle over him. Though their relations have greatly improved in the years since his mother’s death, Spock does not forget that the role of a Vulcan parent is to guide a child’s mind with constant correction, and that his father had applied this principle with diligence. “I presume you wish to discuss the investigation into the Teslau matter.”

“This is a worthy subject for discussion,” Sarek says, with a slight inclination of his head. “You may know that James has asked me to file a formal complaint with the Federation as a way of increasing political pressure to purge the corrupt elements from the Starfleet leadership. This I have agreed to do, as I believe it will ultimately benefit Vulcan.”

“Jim does not believe his own influence to be sufficient,” Spock says, relaxing slightly. This topic has been very much on his mind as well.

“No, and in this, I believe he is wrong. However, I did not summon you hear to speak of James. I have a private matter to discuss with you, my son.”

This statement revives Spock’s concern.

“Yes, father?”

Sarek runs a fingertip around the rim of his glass, a curiously purposeless gesture. “Marriage, as you know, is among the most sacred of all Vulcan traditions. Marriage, and the bond that precedes it, is the structure upon which we build our commitment to non-violence.”

Nonplussed, Spock quickly reviews his recent behavior as a husband and finds nothing wanting. “I trust that I have always shown the greatest respect for that institution.”

“Indeed.” Sarek moves to stand behind Spock but does not look at him, keeping his gaze instead on the bare hills, where the lowering sun glows like a dying fire. “You have fulfilled your obligation to continue the line of Surak. I have, however, a different obligation: to set an example as a leader of our world and a representative of the living memory of Vulcan.”

“Have you not fulfilled this obligation as well?” Spock hopes his reference is sufficiently elliptical. Sahn’pel, Sarek’s second wife, had died shortly before Spock and Uhura had arrived on Vulcan.

“Marriage is not an achievement; it is a state, and one which male Vulcans are ill advised to forswear until they are advanced in years.” Now Spock must suppress a slight dilation of the blood vessels in his face; he has never discussed the time of madness with his father, and has no wish to do so.

“I presume, then, that you plan to marry again?”

“I do.”

It is not unexpected; Spock had, in fact, wondered when his father might take another wife, although the fact that his union with Sahn’pel had been childless had raised uncomfortable questions.

“And the name of she who is to be my mother?”

Sarek comes as close to smiling as Spock recalls ever seeing. “She is Winona Kirk, of course.”

Spock experiences a curious sensation, similar to falling. He grabs at the balcony railing to steady himself. Sarek looks taken aback.

“Surely this is no surprise. You know that Winona and I have spent a great deal of time in each other’s company. She is a woman of good character, highly intelligent, and respected in her profession. Moreover she is the mother of James, your close associate.”

“On the contrary, I have nothing but regard for her. But I naturally assumed you would select a Vulcan mate.” His father continues to look at him impassively, and Spock is annoyed at his obtuseness. “As I have done. As so many others have done, for the survival of our species and culture.”

“You found an elegantly logical solution to reconcile your obligations and your personal desires, it is true. Yet you must know that it is controversial in many quarters. There are those who regard Saiehnn as your true and only wife. I cannot allow this to be the case with Winona.”

“And yet it is acceptable for Nyota?” Spock makes no effort to control his anger. “Our arrangement, however logical, has been difficult for all three of us, Nyota most of all. She left her homeworld and her commission in Starfleet to raise our children in conditions that may at best be called inhospitable. I have subjected her to all this because I believed it was my duty to Vulcan. And now you take a wife of your choosing and will have no other, and you tell me that it is out of obligation?”

“Nyota is fully capable of choosing her own path,” Sarek says, a hard edge to his voice. “As your mother was. As Winona is. Through their choices I have learned much about human adaptability, and it is this example I wish to place before our people. My son, our civilization is dying a slow death. It may seem beyond the reach of any one individual to prevent that. And yet it has happened before, in the time of Surak, when we almost destroyed ourselves through passion and ignorance.”

“Then you support Reunification, after all?”

“Why must it be one or the other? No, I do not support Reunification, as I have learned not to trust to the clemency of the victor. True change, I believe, comes only with necessity and pain; again, I point to our own history.”

“Admiral Kirk believes that the Romulans desire peace as much as we do, but that their culture provides no framework in which it can be sought honorably. He believes we can show them the way.”

Sarek gives another half-smile. “James takes human empathy to its logical conclusion; he believes that his own capacity for change is present in all sentient beings.”

“You disagree?”

“No, but I would be unwilling to wager the survival of the Federation on it. Yet Vulcan must adapt and find a path forward, lest we become as a species under glass, something to be studied and put back on the shelf.”

“What of the aspect of khul-ut-shan that speaks to the preservation of diversity?”

“The universe is far from perfect. As Surak said, khul-ut-shan as it exists in our minds is but a shadow of its real form. I serve it in my own way, and I am proud of what I have achieved.”

“To what specifically do you refer?”

Sarek joins his first two fingers and brushes them against the back of Spock’s hand. It is the closest he has come to touching Spock in many decades, and he feels the brush of his father’s mind like the passage of a great ship.

“To you yourself, my son. You are a child of two worlds and the only one of your kind. I trust you shall not be the last.”

I never wished to be a symbol, Spock thinks, and then thinks of his own children.

Sarek holds his gaze for a moment but says nothing, finally taking the empty glass from Spock’s hand and disappearing into the house, leaving Spock alone with his thoughts and the first stars of evening.

+++++

Winona casts an eye around her office at the Teslau Center for the last time, checking to make sure that nothing is left behind. Not that she has much to take with her--a few PADDs, a mug made by one of the Teslau mothers, a sweater for the nights that she was kept late and the desert cold crept into the walls.

If she wanted, she could wait until everything settles down again. But at 72, Winona isn't too keen on the idea of twiddling her thumbs while Starfleet slowly siphons off the funding for Teslau each year until it ceases to exist altogether. There's a cushy research position waiting for her at the VSA; perhaps she'll have the opportunity to find some smart kid she can nudge towards the idea of revisiting the heaps of data they've collected. They haven't even begun to scratch the surface of the raw data acquired on those few children who possessed enhanced telepathic ability. `

"Computer, lights off," she says, her voice ringing loudly in the silence.

Winona makes a point of taking her leave formally from the few full time staff they have on board there. She'd notified them all as soon as she made her decision, but still, her breath gets a little caught in her chest when she says goodbye. They politely pretend not to notice as they offer formal regrets at the news of her departure. Whether or not they're all sincere, she can only guess.

There's a heaviness in the air that hangs over everything, working its way into the silences that used to be filled with children's voices. Classes are on hold indefinitely; the High Council deemed their continuation unsafe until such a time when they can guarantee the safety of the children. And who knows when that will be.

Vesko's office is last on her list. When she arrives, she's greeted by the rise and fall of soft conversation coming from inside. It falls to a stop when she sets foot into the doorway.

"You may enter, Commander Kirk."

T'Pau, Winona thinks. She's bit stunned to see her at all, a sentiment that rapidly curdles into bitterness.. She's probably come to gloat over the figurative and literal rubble that's been made of Teslau. Her anger rises hot and fast under her collar. Who does she think she is, anyway--Winona has never needed special clearance to enter the offices of her own staff members.

Winona clears her throat, nods to politely first to T'Pau in deference to her status as the eldest female in the room. "Good evening, T'Pau, Vesko. What brings you to the clinic today?"

T'Pau's expression shifts subtly. "You are angry with me," she says, a questioning rise at the end of the statement.

Vesko makes a hesitant motion forward from her position next to the windowsill. A long crack runs down the window, one of the many small repairs on hold for the moment due to the shortage of workers and the long list of high priority construction projects in the city.

"Winona," Vesko says, moving to intercept the argument that they can all see on the horizon, "T'Pau has come to offer congratulations on your appointment at the Academy. I am sure you will find the position a suitable match to your skill set."

That makes Winona feel a little embarrassed, but it doesn't quell her suspicion entirely. The day T'Pau makes a visit solely for the purpose of socialization is the day Winona signs up as a trader with the Orion Syndicate.

"I supposed you're satisfied, then," Winona says wearily. "The Vai Ba’Tak have achieved their stated aim, after all. Teslau is effectively finished."

"I gain no pleasure from senseless violence." T'Pau replies, sharply. That strength of personality within her that has bent entire governments to her will is like a palpable force in the air. "The attack brings no benefit to the people of Uzh Shi'kahr. I anticipate that in the long term, the Federation will shift its focus away from the colony and toward the Romulan threat, whether it is real or a fantasy."

"You don't think the Romulans are responsible?" Winona says, caught off guard.

"That remains to be determined," she replies, easily dodging the question. "It is also irrelevant. Teslau was destined to meet with failure from the moment it was conceived."

"The project succeeded in its stated aims," interjects Vesko. "The adaptation of the teachings of Surak was one step in the evolution of our people; Teslau was to be the next."

"Surak has taught us that where fear walks, anger is its companion." T'Pau looks pointedly at the cracked window. "Every star has a number of years in our skies before it burns itself out. It is your fear of the natural progression of our race that has brought us to this point."

Winona scoffs. They live in a world where the laws of physics are bent to their will on a daily basis, and she wants to draw the line at giving population replacement a little nudge in the right direction? "Are you saying that you would let Vulcan die rather than have a few of you who are different?" She takes a deep breath and uncurls her fingers from where the nails were cutting into the skin of her palms. "The science here was new, untested--we would have gotten it in a few more years, I know we would have."

"At what cost?" T'Pau demands. "If we cannot communicate, one mind to another, we are no longer Vulcan. Do tell me, Commander Kirk. What number of children with mothers who cannot speak to them, or fathers can not touch them, would be sufficient to justify your cause?"

From the corner of her eye, Winona spots Vesko, who holds herself terribly still. She's no doubt thinking of her own children, whose psychic abilities are so accelerated that they are drawn into a mind meld instantaneously upon contact with another individual. Winona's own thoughts go to T'Sura, who at her young age already shows a growing reluctance to interact with her peers outside of the Teslau center.

"I don't have an answer for you, T'Pau. But I know that we at least had to try. "

There's something undeniably weary about the way that T'Pau looks at them. "Yes. I thought as much."

+++++

Spock finds Jim at the Federation’s semi-permanent headquarters on New Vulcan, where the Admiral has been given a small, plain office that at least has the distinction of a door. The building itself is as bland and steeped in human geometry as any of the others constructed by the Federation Authority for New Vulcan. That the buildings are starting to show signs of age in the harsh climate is a visible reminder of exactly how long it has been since the settlement of New Vulcan, while sheer number of humans working in the building demonstrates too clearly that the promise of rapid revival has not been met.

“Can you spare a moment? I wish to speak with you briefly,” Spock says, observing Jim’s temporary desk, cluttered with a half-dozen PADDs, a half-finished cup of coffee, and a small wooden box.

“Sure, sit. I’ve got something I need to talk to you about, too, but I can’t promise it’ll be brief.” Spock notices that Jim is not smiling.

“Perhaps it concerns the same matter.”

“Won’t know until you tell me.” Spock sees unaccustomed challenge in Jim’s direct, blue gaze.

“Very well. I have spoken with my father, who wished to convey his intention to--” Spock pauses, and Jim leans forward.

“Lodge a complaint with the Federation? Yeah, I know, and I can’t tell you how important I think it is. It’s going to make it awfully hard for the Committee of Inquiry to think it’s just Jim Kirk being a holier-than-thou ass again.”

“It is uncharacteristic of you to care about others’ opinions,” Spock says, a little thrown off. “But it is his intentions concerning your mother of which I wish to speak.”

“Oh, that.” The absent smile finally breaks out across Kirk’s face. “I probably had the same conversation with mom. It’s kind of cute that they wanted to ask our permission first.”

“And what did you tell her?”

“That I was delighted, of course. Wait--did you think I’d be upset?”

“I hoped not. Yet your mother did not remarry after the death of your father, and it has been many years.” Spock has an unpleasant memory of his own illogical feelings when witnessing Sarek’s marriage to Sahn'pel.

“Not that many years,” Jim says, running a hand through his thinning hair. He has been alive, of course, for the exact number of years that his mother has been a widow. “But apart from making my mom happy, it’s going to make us family--you and me and Uhura. How could I not be pleased with that?”

“You are generous, as always, in your construction of events.”

“You mean I’m a hopeless optimist. Well, in this case I think it’s a safe bet. This Teslau thing has turned into a mess. Starfleet’s likely to keep it going for long enough that they can’t be accused of giving into terrorism, and then mothball it. Why should Winona get pushed around by annoying Starfleet brass like me when she can be here, among her own people?” Spock raises an eyebrow in question. “You know--scientists.”

“Then she intends to give up her commission?”

“Hand over the phaser, keep the pension. Sounds like a good deal to me.” Kirk picks up the coffee cup, sniffs at it tentatively, and takes a swallow. “Less than a day old is probably safe, right? I really hope I can make it to the wedding; Vulcan weddings are great. Has Sarek picked an executioner yet?”

“No plans have been made because they are not formally betrothed. Sarek will, however, expect both his sons to be there.” The word produces an alteration in Jim’s mood, which was veering toward the lighthearted.

“Oh, right. Vulcans consider bonds by marriage to be the equivalent of family ties. That’ll be novel. I’ve never had a father to piss off before.” As he speaks, he runs his finger lightly along the top of the wooden box on his desk, as if to brush off the dust.

“Sarek is--” Spock pauses, unable to easily summarize everything he has learned about his father. “He is a typical Vulcan father in many ways--demanding to the point of harshness, by human standards. Yet he is capable of surprising leaps in--I hesitate to call it logic; vision might be more precise. And he is a great admirer of human culture. As you are its embodiment, at least in its better aspects, I believe Sarek will consider you a most satisfactory addition to the family.”

“Thanks. I’ll do my best to live up to that.” Jim’s smile now is warm and genuine; Spock feels himself responding, as he always has, both on the level of personal affection, and to his captain, who does not make idle promises.

“Now, you wished to tell me something as well?”

“Yeah.” Jim slumps a bit, sighs out a little whuff of air, and pulls the wooden box toward himself with both hands, as if he is determined to confront something unwelcome. “Bones brought me this. It’s Pike’s. He left it with Bones a while back, to give to me in case something happened. That’s not unusual in itself; humans can be pretty sentimental when it comes to death and parcelling out their stuff. But he’d already made me his executor, and you better believe the chain of custody on an admiral’s personal effects is pretty tight. So I figured that there had to be something in here he wanted me to see.”

Jim flips the lid of the box open, and it bangs against the desk with a hollow thud. Spock avoids looking at its contents.

“Go on and look. It’s nothing personal. I mean, it’s all personal, but nothing he’d be embarrassed to have you see. You were friends with him longer than I was, after all.”

Spock considers the truth of that statement as he peers at the box. It appears to be the usual ephemera that humans accumulate through their lives, like the magpie birds of Earth that gather shiny objects: a pair of ancient-looking cufflinks, a few comm badges, pieces of paper, a handful of memory cubes, and a crude metal model of a starship that appears to be of the Deep Space Scout type. Jim brushes it lightly with his fingertip.

“I was going to go for the memory cubes first, but this caught my eye. It’s the Kelvin.”

“May I ask how you know?” The model appears to have no markings on it, save a few small holes.

“Long story. Anyway, Chris would’ve known this would catch my eye, and that I’d pick it up. Lucky, because it’s got a biometric lock, and it opened when I touched it. Like magic. Like something from an old story.” Jim fits actions to words, holding it between his thumb and forefinger, close to his face, scrutinizing. With a tiny click and a sigh, the miniature saucer section opens, and Spock peers in.

“It appears to be some type of nanodevice,” Spock says.

“You’re right. It’s a recording device, and what it recorded was Pike’s personal logs. There are hundreds of hours, but I figured the last ones would be the most interesting, huh?”

Jim’s words are a bit too rushed and hectic for Spock’s comfort. It cannot have been easy, listening to the words of a dead man to whom he had been so close, never minding what they said.

“And what did they reveal?”

Jim meets Spock’s eyes with effort. “Pike was involved in a secret intelligence initiative. Only the highest levels of Starfleet knew about it, which, interestingly enough, didn’t include me. But Chris trusted me; in the end, he trusted me, even though we’d had our differences about the Romulan matter.” Jim places the device in his open palm and drops his hand, along with his gaze, to the desk. Spock feels it would be rude to notice the shine of moisture in his eyes, though he himself is hardly unaffected. “He trusted us both, at the very beginning. I feel like this is his last order, Spock, and I want to do the right thing. But it’s not just a ship this time. Not even Earth.”

“No? What is it, then?”

“Oh, nothing we can’t handle.” Jim’s eyes are still bright, but now he is smiling. “Just the whole damn galaxy.”

The look in his eye, the tone in his voice--mischief where others would see horrifying danger, as if he were a child and the risk of death were an unearned treat--Spock’s heart responds to Jim as it always has. But Jim has remained the same, and Spock is now a different person.

“I regret that I cannot--” he begins.

“I know, I know,” Jim says quickly, ducking his head, hiding his disappointment. “You have obligations here. I get it. But I can’t help wanting what I want. Between you and Uhura, you make me feel like Mephistopheles.”

“Like that devil of Earth, you are not offering us anything that we do not already desire.”

“That may be true--” his voice trails off, and he rubs his hands together, restless. “Spock, I did make Uhura an offer. I won’t apologize for it; there’s going to have to be a purge after this Teslau thing, and we’ve been losing officers anyway, between the border skirmishes and the fact that a lot of people are expecting to get our assess handed to us by the Romulans. If news about his last mission gets out, there’s going to be an exodus, and I need good people. Great people. So I offered Uhura command of the Astarte.”

Spock is rendered momentarily speechless, not least of all at the thought that it only now occurs to him that this something his wife would both excel at and wish for.

“As she has both extensive experience on the Enterprise and technical and linguistic skills, she would be a fine choice.”

“Oh, please. If the thought doesn’t terrify you, you’re not--” Jim pauses.

“Human? A loving husband?” Spock can sit still no longer, and rises to pace--a bad habit, but one he will not curtail now. “I have tried to be these things and as always, I find them difficult to reconcile with being a good Vulcan. The truth is that besides the Vai Ba’Tak, and those old and set in their ways, there are few who would remain on New Vulcan if presented with an honorable alternative. I have every reason to wish to go with you and Nyota.”

“Every reason?”

“I stand corrected. I have my children, and Saiehnn, to keep me here.” At this moment, the thought does not comfort him as it should. “Jim, Nyota has been unhappy here for some time. I cannot leave, and I gain nothing by persuading her to stay.”

Jim places his hands, palms open, on the desk, a gesture of openness, or perhaps surrender. “You know me, and how I work. I don’t take risks with other people’s lives lightly, but when I have a job to do, I work with the tools I’m given.”

“Of course,” Spock says, trying with all his discipline not to feel like he has lost a battle. “I expect nothing less.”

+++++

Taking on T'Sura and Saavik for an afternoon of babysitting isn't a pleasure that Winona indulges in often, but with Sam and Aurelan's children parsecs away, it's certainly one she misses. There's no overstuffed bag of toys or list of frantic instructions, just a single PADD and a three-dimensional puzzle, which all three parents repeatedly assure her are more than enough to keep the occupied for the next few hours. Winona, however, is skeptical, and has picked up a few educational learning tools over the years that come highly recommended by some of the parents she's come into contact with. They all look more like instruments for torture rather than amusement, but Winona is doing her best not to judge. Her refrigerator is stocked with her secret stash of imported Terran foods, once of the small luxuries she intends to introduce the children to, as befits her role of surrogate grandmother.

"Rumor has it that this might be the last time I drop them off here," Uhura says, her expression coy.

"Vulcans are terrible gossips in their own way, aren’t they?" The children duck behind her legs and disappear into her flat. She's been on her own for so long now--it would be a lie to say that there wasn't a small amount of apprehension involved in folding herself into another person's life, especially one as important as Sarek.

"Admit it, he makes you happy," Uhura says, laughter in her eyes. "I can tell."

A smile and a shrug is all she'll give away--she's picked up a number of personality quirks from her partner-to-be, and a certain degree of emotional dissembling is just one of them. "So, you're headed back into the black--how does it feel?"

"Good--and bad. Strange." A shadow passes over Uhura's face. "I think Spock is coming around to the idea, but it's taking a while. Longer than I thought I would, to be honest."

Spock and Saiehnn are staying on the colony with the children, at least for the foreseeable future. The work of chipping away the domestic resistance to anything that isn't an exact replica of life on old Vulcan is an uphill battle, and they're still standing at the foot of the mountain.

Winona gives Uhura's shoulder a squeeze. "Don't forget that Spock's a stranger here, too. He's up to his ears in politics not only because he wants to be, but because he has to. His real friends, well--they're probably few and far between. I probably don't have to tell you this, but, he's going to miss you."

Winona can see the hesitation written all over her face. Both Uhura and Saiehnn have put up remarkably well, what with standing on the dividing line of Spock's affections for all these years. But she must have a lot of faith in her marriage to take off to the other side of the galaxy, where she'll be out of touch with her young family for months at a time, if not years.

A crash sounds from somewhere in the direction of the bedroom, followed by an ominous silence. Winona's ears perk up, but she doesn't hear any crying, so it can't be that bad. On the other hand, hold it a minute--the twins probably wouldn't shed a tear if you were holding their feet to a fire.

Winona smiles at the pained expression on Uhura's face. "Well, I can't tell you what you'll run into out there, but I can say that I'm sure you won't miss this part at all."

+++++

"Good weather today," says Uhura, looking out of the shuttleport window. The station at Uzh Shi'Kahr is still tiny--people aren't exactly banging down the doors to get here.

"You call this good weather? I call it torture," replies Kirk, a grimace on his face. He turns to Joanna, who tagged along for the send-off. Kirk has done his best to rally her to the spacefaring cause in the past few weeks, although Uhura isn't so sure how successful he'll be. Joanna is her father's daughter after all, a landlover to the core.

"You sure you don't want to come with us, Lieutenant? The ship is climate controlled for the comfort of you and twenty-seven other species onboard."

Joanna wrinkles her nose, then shakes her head. “I’ve requested transfer to the Starfleet base at Uzh Shi'Kahr. I think Sarek will put in a good word for me. He said he liked the data visualization stuff I did for Teslau.”

“Lies!” McCoy says, appearing behind her. “She’s cooking something up with the Romulans. No, not anything like that,” he adds, seeing Uhura’s expression of shock. “Some kind of cultural exchange. What culture, I ask you? Duelling? Assassination techniques?”

“It’s not like that at all! Romulus is an ancient culture, with--” The rest is lost as the two McCoys walk onto the Carson’s shuttle together.

“If he can keep her talking, we might be able to take off with both of them,” Jim says.

“Jo’s not going anywhere,” Uhura says. “It’s strange, but she’s settled in the best of all of us.”

“Resilience of youth. Or stubbornness of McCoys, one or the other.” When Uhura can’t quite bring herself to laugh, Jim stops trying. “And she had the least to hold her back. She loves her family, but she’s at the age where she has to make her own place in the universe.”

“Then what does that say about me? That I’m going through a second childhood?”

Kirk makes a noncommittal noise, trying and failing to look innocent. "You said it, not me".

"Sometimes I wonder if Joanna's taking the right approach with the Romulans. I still can't believe that they're pursuing the development of--” She doesn’t speak it aloud, not even here; the Romulans’ possession of red matter is a highly classified secret. “Not after the destruction it's already created." Uhura remembers the sight of a hundred cracks spreading across the viewscreen of the Enterprise as that gaping mouth threatened to swallow them whole. It never fails to send a chill down her spine.

"If you look at it from their perspective, it's a strategically sound decision. Starfleet has yet to return to its pre-Narada strength, and Vulcan never will. If we wanted to maintain our position as king of the mountain, we’d be looking into ways to develop it ourselves."

Kirk is keeping his expression perfectly still, which makes Uhura suspicious. He's always worn his emotions on his sleeve. "Well, are we?" she asks, and is almost afraid to hear the answer.

"I'm glad to say that the answer to that question is no. Old Spock may have given us enough information to destroy Nero, but that was all he gave us."

"But it had to have come up among the brass at some point."

"It did." The corners of his mouth tilt up into a wry smile. "I fought it every step of the way."

Uhura tightens her grip on the window railing. When Kirk argues with Spock, it's merely the first step on their path to eventual agreement. But while Uhura respects him, she's never quite seen eye-to-eye with Kirk, and she suspects it's the same here. Kirk has done a lot for New Vulcan. But he's never had to watch Saiehnn sit up late at night trying to piece together the history of her family, trying to conjure a legacy for the twins out of the few pieces of oral history that survived. On those nights, Uhura keenly feels the need to have someone to blame.

"Do you ever regret it?"

Uhura's attempt at prevarication doesn't fool Kirk in the slightest. He shakes his head firmly, all traces of his usual warmth disappeared.

"Not once. Who's to say we would stop at simply threatening them? Once it's out there, there's no turning back."

"And yet we expect to them to drop their weapons and turn tail at the sight of us?"

“They don’t know we haven’t developed--it. In fact, I have it on good authority that Romulan spies returning home from the colony here are confirming our own weapons program. They’re telling the Star Empire that Teslau was a convenient distraction, and that Old Spock’s hermit routine was just that, a cover.”

“Good lord.” Uhura’s going to need to recalibrate her mind for the multi-layered deceptions of galactic politics. “How long can we keep bluffing?”

"A good long while, I think. No one can resist the Kirk charm.” He nudges her with his shoulder. "Not even Romulans. Are you gonna tell me you're not excited?"

"I can hardly wait," Uhura replies, and is surprised to realize that she means it.

Their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of Spock and Saiehnn, with the twins in tow. They attempted to leave for the station all at the same time, but the twins had waylaid them with their most recent round of investigations into the viscosity of breakfast cereals at various temperatures.

Uhura squats down to the ground where T'Sura is standing next to Spock, one hand on his trouser leg for comfort.

"Behave for me, okay? No more experiments at the table."

She gifts each of the girls with a series of kisses on each cheek, an experience that they bear with remarkable stoicism. The thought that they might be twice this size the next time she gets to touch them makes her heart twinge a little.

"Your safety will always be foremost in my thoughts," Spock says, keeping his voice low enough that only she can hear.

Uhura's afraid of what she'll say if she opens herself up right now. There's no telling which of the jumble of emotions jockeying for supremacy in her mind is going to win. So she just gives his forearm a squeeze and says, "I hope that's the Vulcan for, 'I'll miss you, too.'"

+++++

Uhura takes a sip of a dead man’s Scotch and tries to relax. The fire is pleasant, and Christopher Pike’s old dog is silken and drowsy under her hand. But Uhura still expects the admiral to appear at any moment, asking what the hell a cadet is doing sleeping in his house and helping herself to the contents of his liquor cabinet.

The house is Jim’s now, and the suggestion that she stay here until she found a place of her own was generous and thrifty but, in practice, distinctly creepy. The ancient wood creaks with wind and rain and often for no reason at all. Uhura, waiting at the pleasure of Starfleet Command for her commission, has far too much time to think about the dry winds and blazing sun of New Vulcan.

This morning, on their daily comm, Spock told her that Saiehnn was pregnant with a child conceived without any Teslau medical wizardry. Since then, Uhura’s put great effort into being happy for them, even though it’s the final nail in the coffin of any hope that Spock might agree, at the last moment, to a new commission in Starfleet. His days of dramatic appearances on the bridge are gone; he’s committed now, quite literally with his blood, to the slight hope of rebuilding Vulcan. In the private corners of her mind, the ones she hasn’t shared with him, Uhura sometimes hoped that the Destruction had at least eased Spock’s aching need to be a better and more perfect Vulcan. But all it had done was give Spock a new Vulcan, one he could help to shape--not in his father’s image, or his future self’s, but in his own. And now Spock will have a mostly Vulcan child with his fully Vulcan wife. Well, she thinks, it’s not my responsibility now to try to make him happy.

It’s not as if her own future is any clearer. They could well be doomed, the lot of them-- playing a shell game on the table of the galaxy, drawing it out until they find peace or a better weapon. Uhura’s not afraid of death, not really; it’s the uncertainty that sets her fingers drumming on the wooden arm of the old easy chair.

“I just wish I knew what would happen,” she says aloud, because the silence is driving her crazy.

Pike’s old dog raises her head and gives a hopeful whine, not understanding, just glad for now to hear a human voice.

The Gardens of the Desert, Part 3

2011-11-03T22:14:28Z

Title: Gardens of the Desert
Authors: lindmere and merisunshine36
Artist: ladymac111
Mixer: nextian
Beta: sail_aweigh
Series: ST XI
Character/Pairing(s): Joanna McCoy, Kirk, McCoy, Pike, Spock/Uhura/OFC, Winona/Sarek
Rating: PG-13 for violence and language
Word Count: 27,000
Warnings: Secondary character death, violence, discussion paralleling the autism debate

Joanna wakes up late, still a bit groggy from wine and food. Peeking out through the thermoshield shutters into another cloudless, razor-sharp morning, she feels the weight of Admiral Pike’s death return with her memories of the night before. She’d hardly known him well, but he’d been a fixture of her childhood, and of her rapidly receding youth. As for what his death portends, Joanna would rather not think about it.

She makes it to the clinic without encountering any inquisitive Romulans. As a number cruncher and report filer, Joanna speaks with few patients, but from her station she can see them file in and out: Vulcan women of indeterminate age, serious as Saiehnn but lacking what Joanna persists as considering her inner fire. A fertility clinic should be a cheerful place to work, but the burden of necessity overlays what she gathers is already a pretty utilitarian approach to procreation. In her head, she can hear Saiehnn’s voice saying The bloodline of Surak must be preserved, and then she turns back to work and mentally away from thoughts of Saiehnn and Spock and procreation.

Joanna’s easing herself into the day by rechecking birthweights when there’s a sudden, blinding flash like lightning with no sound. Everything turns to white bright heat for a second and then it’s gone.

A sharp pain goes through her, searing into her joints. The room spins around her and she grabs for the edge of her desk and misses, hitting the floor with a jolting thud as she loses track of which way is up.

The pain ebbs and is replaced by a wave of nausea as her ears ring with afterecho of a loud, electronic buzz that seems to come from all around her. That much is familiar: the sound of electronic equipment dying. She braves the nausea enough to turn her head and sees through the sparkles in front of her eyes that above her that the huge panel display has gone blank.

She thinks about the stories she was raised on, bold decisions and incredible odds and logic and intuition and saving the day. She believed it was something that could be learned, which is why she went to the Academy. Now the something she got all that training for has happened, and she’s lying on the floor, helpless, not able to control her own muscles, let alone save anyone or anything else.

Unknowable minutes pass and no one comes. Finally she makes an executive decision to roll onto her side and manages to struggle to a sitting position without losing her breakfast or the direction of the ceiling. She’s incongruously embarrassed to find she’s lost bladder control, and relieved that today of all days she’s wearing a long Vulcan tunic.

“Jo!” A figure appears in the door, sending a fizz of alarm down her brittle nerves. A moment later she realizes it’s Winona, on the floor beside her, trying simultaneously to give her a hug and check her with a tricorder. “Sweetheart, are you all right? You’re awake, that’s good. No, don’t try to get up--just lie here for a bit and rest. I’ll be back for you; I’ve got to see to the others first.” She runs a cool hand over Joanna’s forehead and smooths her hair, which Joanna realized belatedly had been standing straight up.

“What others? Did this happen to everyone? What was it?”

“Too soon to say.” It’s bad; that much, Joanna can tell.

“Let me help. I’m fine, I can--”

Winona pushes her gently back toward the floor. “No, sweetheart. Not now.”

“What about Saiehnn? And Uhura?” But Winona is already disappearing through the door.

Many long, fretful minutes later, a pair of male Vulcans in healer’s green insist on putting Joanna on a stretcher, though by the time they arrive, her muscles are feeling like something other than jelly. She thinks she’s in pain but the messages to her brain are jangled and confused. She can tell by the set of their mouths that the healers won’t answer questions, so she closes her eyes as they load her into a transport bound for the Quadrant 2 Healing Center.

She drifts off, or so she supposes, because her next vision is of the blurry face of the healer, leaning in close enough that she can see the pupils of his dark eyes.

“She is conscious?” says a voice from somewhere beyond her peripheral vision.

“Yes,” says the healer. “So it appears.”

“I advise you sedate her. Humans are predisposed to experience shock, which can further damage their already fragile constitutions.”

The healer nods and reaches for a hypo. I’m not fragile, Joanna wants to say, but as her lips form the words, the healer’s angular face turns to cotton wool, and disappears.

+++++

There are a few moments after Uhura first regains consciousness when she can hear everything around her but see nothing, and she wonders if she's on her way out or if she still stands a chance to live. Clamping down on the natural urge to panic, she remains and conducts a silent inventory of all her moving parts. She's relieved to find them all in working order with the exception of a stabbing pain that originates at the base of her neck, radiating up and out to her teeth.

Uhura's vision clears up after a few seconds. She's trapped beneath something large and unyielding, in a triangle shaped wedge of space that makes a Jeffries tube seem roomy by comparison. When the blast happened she'd been at her desk reviewing the curriculum for the day; it's likely a section of the wall. Uhura is oddly grateful for the cheap pre-fab construction materials used for the education center. Rather than crumbling, the whole room just tilted over like a house of cards.

Her immediate is concern the children. Classes had yet to start today, so the educational center is empty for the most part. But at any given time there will be a few clinicians seeing to expectant mothers and pediatric visits for the new little ones. Uhura’s chest goes tight thinking of them, and she braces her arms against the unyielding slab in a futile attempt to get it out of the way. If the breach of security means that the perpetrator is still on the premises, it might be best for her to stay quiet. But how long would she have to wait here before someone finds her?

“Uhura?” comes a muffled voice from above.

“I’m in here,” she says, keeping her voice level. She’s been through worse than this.
The air is filled with a grinding noise from above as the wall begins to move; she has to squeeze her eyes shut to keep from being blinded by all the dust. It fills her nose and lungs, making it difficult to breathe.

The narrow band of light above her widens slowly until its large enough for a face to peer in. It’s Saiehnn, and she looks immaculate as always, not a hair a hair out of place.

“Are you injured?” she asks, voice perfectly level.

“No, I’m fine,” she takes a few deep breaths of clean, too-warm air. “The twins?”

“They are with Vesko at present, and are uninjured. We were on the lower levels; they were sufficiently far enough from the explosion that they remain intact."

She offers Uhura her arm and begins to pull her up slowly, careful to avoid aggravating any injuries she might have. At first contact, the amount of empathic data she’s subjected to sends her reeling. She and Saiehnn are not intimate, either as friends or as lovers, and instances of touch between them are rare. An overwhelming sense of fear, and panic, and not again buffets the bit of shielding Uhura’s been able to conjure up over the years until Saiehnn remembers herself and lets go.

Uhura has enough leverage at this point that she pushes her way out from beneath the wall and sits in an upright position. For the first time, she gets a good look at the damage. It’s not as bad as she’d imagine, given the sound and the pressure that emanated from the blast center. The other half of the wall she was under remains upright, and the other three escaped with no more than a faint spiderwebbing of cracks.

Saiehnn watches Uhura for a moment. The steadiness of her gaze is an unsettling contrast to the inner turmoil Uhura felt only seconds ago. Saiehnn opens her mouth, then shuts it again and just wipes her hands down her skirts.

Uhura closes her eyes and tries to ignore the massive headache that pulses in time with her heartbeat. “We’re all okay, Saiehnn. Spock wasn’t even in the building.”

Saiehnn's shoulder's settle a little from the stiff pose she'd been holding them in. “This time, yes. But what of the next time?”

+++++

When Joanna opens gritty eyes, blinks, and sees her father, she feels disappointed, because she’s clearly still unconscious. The healer must really have knocked me out, she thinks, but smiles anyway, because her father wearing his Starfleet uniform but looking amiably rumpled, and he’s looking down at her with that watery I love you so much it hurts look that she remembers from earliest childhood.

“Good morning, baby girl,” he says, and squeezes her hand.

“Hi, daddy.” It’s a dream, so she indulges--squeezes his hand back and then holds on to it, looks at him long enough that she notices the hound dog circles under his eyes.

“You gave me quite a scare.” He clears his throat. “Thought I’d sent you somewhere safe. Should have realized by now that there’s no such place.”

“You’re really here. When did you get here? How?”

“Oh, the usual way. I hitched a ride with some Security mucky-mucks who came in to investigate the--” He pauses and runs a hand over his face. “Well, they had you knocked out for quite a while. Tried to sedate me, too; apparently it’s the standard treatment around here for troublesome humans.”

“I’m sure it’s just because they’re busy.” She notes the medical tricorder at her father’s hip; of course he’d be eager to help. “How bad is it?”

“No fatalities. Uhura got a nasty bump on the head, but she’ll be fine. Winona was off with Jim and Sarek. Everyone else is pretty much in the same boat as you: unpleasant neurological effects, but no permanent damage.” He leans forward and runs a hand through her hair. “No damage at all to that big, beautiful brain. It’s good to see you, baby girl.”

It’s good to see him, too; good to know there’s someone who’ll travel across a large swath of galaxy to come to her bedside, to make sure she’s all right. Some day she may outgrow that feeling, but it hasn’t happened yet.

“What was it? Do they know? Why would somebody do this?”

“It was an electromagnetic pulse; they found a gizmo called a flux compression generator at the site. Don’t quote me on that, by the way; Jim told me, but none of this is official yet.”

“I’m an astronomer, dad. I don’t know what that is anyway. And I kind of slept through Intro to Warp Physics.” That gets a lopsided smile out of him.

“Me, too, but it’s got nothing to do with warp drives. Apparently they’re used by the Romulans to create the artificial singularities that power their ships.”

“Romulans?” Jo half sits up in surprise, feels a wave of nausea, and lies right back down again.

“Whoa, there. You’re not going anywhere. Yeah, Romulans. There’s a nest of ‘em living right next door to the city, isn’t there?”

“Yes, but why attack us? Why now? The project’s been going on for four years.”

“Jim thinks it may have something to do with Admiral Pike’s death--the mouse pulling the cat’s tail, to see if it’s awake. Starfleet’s put Jim in charge of the investigation, since he was already planetside. But don’t worry about that now; you need to rest up now so you can argue with me later about bringing you home.” He kisses her forehead, but it does nothing to ease her troubled thoughts.

“Wait. You said nobody was seriously hurt. Does that include Saiehnn?”

“She’s just fine. Better than the rest of you, actually; she was on one of the lower levels of the building. You like her, do you? I’ve found her a pretty tough nut to crack.”

“I do, dad. I really, really like her.” It’s a childish expression of her feelings, but it stops her father dead.

“Oh no, baby girl. Please tell me you don’t--”

“You’d have to get to know her to understand. She’s an amazing person, and--” Joanna knows she’s damning herself with each protest, so she gives up. “I didn’t mean for it to happen. It just did.”

Her father gives her that little patronizing smile that she finds so annoying from older adults. “It happens at your age, I know. But innocent or not, she’s another man’s wife, and another woman’s, when it comes to that. If it’s just infatuation, then I guess there’s no harm in it, but if not--you’re setting yourself up for some serious heartache. Trust me, I know.” He kisses her again, and now the gesture seems a little patronizing, as if he’s trying to soothe the little girl she no longer is. “Well, we’ll get you off this rock and off to somewhere with some beings who don’t have icewater in their veins, and you can find someone who’ll love you the way you deserve to be loved.” Joanna wants to ask what deserving has to do with it, but doesn’t.

Her father pats her hand and gives her a smile before he draws the curtains around her bed, and she feels reassured and confused and frustrated. What she has on New Vulcan may not have been much, but it’s hers--it belongs to her and to Winona and Saiehnn and all the expectant parents and all the children who owed their existence to a brave and risky decision to try something new. No one should have the power to take that out of their hands--not Starfleet, or scheming Romulans, or even her own father.

+++++

Uhura has developed a number of new skills as a parent, including something akin to precognition, so it’s distressing but not exactly a surprise when little Sovan falls flat on his face. The two-year old has been tottering around the Physical Skills Course with a stubborn determination that would please his parents but makes his teacher nervous.

She rushes over to see if he’s hurt, still bracing herself, after all this time, for tears and wailing that never come. Sovan’s lower lip trembles, his heavy little brows draw together, and she wants to say Oh, just go ahead and cry already.

“Whoa there, little fella.” Uhura looks up and sees Leonard McCoy, medical tricorder at the ready, closing the distance with a few long strides. “That was a first class fall. Let’s see what you did to yourself.”

“I am not injured,” Sovan says distinctly, to Leonard’s evident surprise.

“Doctors don’t like it when you try to do their jobs, young man. Let me see that knee or I’ll have to call the Federation Medical Association on you.”

Leonard uses the regen on Sovan’s scraped knee while the boy frowns down at him.

“There you go, good as new.” Leonard visibly checks himself from clapping the boy on the shoulder as he runs back to the start of the obstacle course.

“Sovan, where are your manners?”

“Thank you, Healer,” Sovan says, inclining his head gravely.

“You’re very welcome.” Leonard packs his medkit away with a chuckle. “I’ll be damned if this isn’t the quietest playground I’ve ever seen. It’s spooky.”

“Beats the alternative, especially before I’ve had my second cup of coffee.” She accepts a bristly kiss on the cheek from Leonard along with a breath of his cologne, not immune after all these years to his Earthly charm. “How’s Jo feeling? Len, I’m so sorry--you know I’d never have suggested she come here if I’d thought there was any danger.”

“Oh, I know, and I don’t blame you or Spock or Winona; the galaxy’s a dangerous place these days. I’ll admit that for the first day or two I wanted to take her home and lock her in the attic, but I’m getting over it.” They walk toward a bench under the broad eaves of the school building, the only shade against the harsh rays of the early morning sun.

“Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Leonard continues. “I have a favor to ask. Jo’s taken the bombing in her stride but she’s got a bee in her bonnet about the Romulan thing. Apparently she met a Romulan colonist a few days ago and all she can think about is why they’d attack a bunch of innocent women. I told her that people are capable of things in war that they’d never consider otherwise, but that’s not a good enough answer, apparently. It’s the McCoy coming out in her. To tell you the truth, I’m glad to see it; she was always a good kid, but kind of passive.”

“I’m glad you’ve noticed the change. It’s a hard life here, but I think it’s brought out the best in Jo, even if she doesn’t realize it yet. So what’s the favor?”

“Well.” Leonard huffs out a sigh. “She’s decided she wants to visit the Romulan colony and confront the man she met. I don’t know why she thinks she’ll get a straight answer, but that’s what she wants.”

“That’s not uncommon among survivors. Even the kids ask me questions about the Romulans, and about Nero. They think I have some unique insight because I was there at the Destruction, and of course I don’t. But knowing there’s a reason might make her feel safer about the whole thing.”

“I guess that makes sense.” Leonard takes a swig from the water bottle that, good doctor that he is, he’s got clipped to his belt. “Anyhow, the favor is that I have no idea what’s up with that Romulan colony, but I know I don’t want her going there alone. You’re still in the ‘Fleet, technically at least--I assume you’ve got your service phaser and communicator?”

“I sure do.” They’re in a lockbox at home and probably need servicing, but she’s got them.

“Jim says he’ll give you coverage from the Carson. If anything happens, all you have to do is pull the plug and beam out. But it would make me feel ten times better if you’d go with her.”

“No problem,” Uhura says, and feels something long dormant stir inside her: the butterfly heartbeat of anticipation that always preceded a mission. “I’d be glad to.”

+++++

Uhura and Spock watch Joanna fiddle with the fastening on her phaser holster until Uhura can't stand it anymore, and reaches out to arrest her motions with a firm hand. Uhura had been party to McCoy's occasional grumbling about his daughter's dismal scores in marksmanship, but this is the first time she's ever witnessed Joanna's relationship with her firearm in person. Joanna flushes, obviously embarrassed to be schooled on something so basic in front of two fairly prominent Starfleet officers.

"Something tells me you haven't touched your phaser since you set foot on the colony. Watch," Uhura says, undoing the fastening on her own to make it easier to demonstrate. The part of her that's been living with toddlers wants to just do it for Joanna, but she holds back. "Tab A, into Slot B." The motions come back to her easily even though it's been four years since she last picked it up.

"I took the minimum number of combat courses necessary to graduate," Joanna confesses.

"It is fortuitous that you have not had an occasion which required the use of your weapon," says Spock. "It is seldom as simple as taught in your training."

They practice a few more times until Uhura is satisfied that Joanna's got a handle on it. When she's finished, Uhura reaches out and gives it a sharp yank to make sure it's secure, then nods and declares them ready to set off.

The look on Spock's face as they leave the house is less than encouraging. He hasn't said anything against this mission, but a thoughtful silence has hung about him all morning like a depressing shadow.

"We'll be fine," insists Uhura, a little annoyed at the thought that she's lost her edge. He touches a finger to her cheek, and she can feel the slow curl of his anxiety, but also the strength of his faith in her.

"I don't know why officers in non-combat zones have to have phasers anyway," Joanna grumbles as the drab landscape rolls past the window of their shuttle. They didn't want to be conspicuous while en route to the settlement, so they're making use the rudimentary public transportation network. "Doesn't that kind of spoil the illusion that we’re only out here for exploration and peacekeeping?"

"If everything goes as planned, you shouldn't have to touch your phaser save for when you take it off at night." Uhura smiles to herself, remembering the number of "peaceful" missions that had ended with her running for her life. "But trust me, if the time comes when you need it, you'll be happy it's there."

They arrive at the colony a little after the evening meal, a time deliberately chosen to catch residents when they were settled in for the day, but before the sun sets. It's a little disconcerting to see so many Vulcanesque faces staring at them, bold and direct, as they pass into the commercial center of the little residential outpost and head toward the inn that intelligence has told them should be suitable for their needs.

"Hello, cognitive dissonance," Joanna mutters under her breath. Uhura can't help but agree.

They settle in before setting off for the local watering hole, as good a place as any to start an investigation. After talking things over with Jim, they've decided that she and Joanna are going for the direct approach. There's no reason in pretending they're here in any capacity other than as official representatives of Starfleet; their human physiology would give them away in a second.

The bar is crowded and messy, not at all like the fastidious little cafes that Vulcans prefer. A thin film of dust clings to everything, including the glass the bartender hand her. Uhura orders something light, made from the pureed pulp of one of the desert plants found in abundance on the colony planet. It's neither Vulcan nor Romulan in origin, but something entirely new that's apparently become popular everywhere. And while not as susceptible to poetic notions as she once was, Uhura likes to think that one day, the two cultures will be able to share more than just similar taste in beverages.

The bartender hands Joanna a bright orange drink that she peers at curiously before taking a cautious sip.

"What is that?" Uhura asks.

"A Flaming Sunset," Joanna winces, her eyes watering. "They definitely got the flaming part right."

"Remember, you're on active duty now," Uhura says, staring pointedly at her drink. Joanna's an adult, she's not going to tell her she's allowed to have it. But she doesn't want to be responsible for an incapacitated person in the middle of a barfight, either. "You're not Jim--don't do anything that might leave you compromised in the event things get hairy."

"Ah. Right." Joanna looks mournfully at her drink before pushing it away.

"Joanna?" says a voice from behind them.

Uhura feels guilty that her hand drifts to her phaser when she turns to greet the newcomer. They've no indication that these people are directly responsible, but the bombing has set her on edge.

Their interloper is rather plain as far as Romulans go, with a simple dark tunic and an institutional-looking haircut that makes him seem more Vulcan than anything else. Not that Uhura is an expert on Romulan personal grooming. Or maybe his look is intentional, to enable him to better fit in with the Vulcan populace. She sighs inwardly--all this guessing will get her nowhere. More importantly, how the hell does he know who Joanna is?

"Rh'Vaurek," Joanna breathes. She looks more than a unsettled that he's recognized her.

"You are wondering how I know your name," Rh'Vaurek replies, a smug smile playing about the corners of his mouth.

Uhura can see Joanna's father in her as she replies, "Yeah, I am," without the slightest hesitance.

"You forget that you are famous--or perhaps I should say infamous--for your work with Teslau, Joanna," he replies, leaning on her name for emphasis. "Many a subspace transmission has made it across the galaxy with your name and likeness attached to it."

"Rh'vaurek," Uhura says, interrupting a conversation that's going nowhere fast. "How did you know we'd be here?"

"I know who you are, Commander Uhura" he replies. "I assumed it would be a matter of time before they sent someone out here to investigate us. Will you tell me how long it will be before we're forcibly removed, or will it be a surprise?"

Joanna's eyes go wide with concern. "No, Rh'vaurek, it's not like that at all."

A number of curious eyes have turned on them at this point. And while Uhura is all for an involved citizenry, they really don't need to have this conversation in public.

"Is there somewhere private we can take this?" Uhura is suspicious at the ease with which they've located Joanna's contact, but if there's going to be a confrontation, there's no sense in walking away from it.

"Of course," he says with a nod. "Follow me."

He brings them to a narrow back room, the walls piled high with storage containers. The heat inside is like a physical presence weighing down on them, heavy and unyielding. In the center of the room are a few chairs and a table made from the same cheap-quality construction materials that everything was made of back when the first colonists were settling in. Things are starting to look up on the Vulcan side of the tracks--more imported goods, things made from locally-sourced construction materials. Going by the available physical evidence, even that small bit of economic prosperity hasn't made it to the Romulans yet.

"Rh'vaurek, I need you to tell us everything you know about the bombing," Joanna says, getting right down to business. Uhura envies the ease with which she settles into the flimsy chair. She's comfortable with the realities of colony life in a way that Uhura never was.

"You assume I know anything about it at all."

"You haven't seen anyone suspicious coming or going? Anyone who didn't look as if they belong here?"

Rh'vaurek gives them a weary look. "Commander Uhura, Lieutenant McCoy--we're a colony of political dissenters, any of whom would be imprisoned or executed for entering Romulan space. We are not in the habit of making social calls."

The lights flicker and fade, plunging them into darkness. Uhura's hand immediately goes to her phaser, her spine a line of tension. A few groans can be heard drifting in from down the hallway in the few seconds before a generator kicks in and the festivities resume.

"We've lost a number of our engineers lately," Rh'vaurek says, gesturing to the light overhead, "and we're facing difficulties in maintaining adequate repairs to our power facilities."

Joanna shakes her head and frowns. "But there are a number of opportunities out here for independent work, new systems development...you should have your hands full."

"We're a small outpost on a colony whose residents look on us with suspicion." The corner of Rh'Vaurek's mouth turns up in a smirk. "The opportunities we have here are nothing compared to what Starfleet can offer them, especially if you're willing to play at being a Vulcan."

"Since when do the Romulans care about what Starfleet thinks?" Joanna mutters.

"Since the Federation lost its most important ally, of course. The destruction of Vulcan has divided us. There are many who call for us to seize upon this advantage, while others have doubts. The Federation has its fair share of enemies, but it also has many friends."

Joanna's expression sours. "Which side are you on?"

Rh'vaurek merely allows his lips to curl up in a smile "Preferably, the one that wins."

"I suppose the real question is, since when does the Federation need Romulan Engineers so badly that they're recruiting from an outpost colony?" asks Uhura. Like most military entities, Starfleet isn't averse to making use of the technological advances of its neighbors, whether friend or foe. But there's only one kind of Romulan-originated technology that would be enticing enough to the Federation to merit poaching Romulan scientists, and the last Romulan to make use of it is long dead. It just doesn't add up--Rh'Vaurek must know something that he's not telling. Uhura just needs to figure out what.

"The flux compression generator," says Jo, breathless. "You don't think that they--"

"We don't think anything, yet." Uhura warns. She can see Joanna's mind running off to unwarranted conclusions already. Uhura has been a member of Starfleet for more than half her life now, and she can't bring herself to think that Starfleet would go so far as to sacrifice civilians just to make the Romulans look bad. They do a good enough job of that themselves.

Uhura deliberately cuts off her own negative train of thought. "Is there anyone other than yourself who can corroborate this story? An eyewitness, or..."

"Rh'vaurek, please," Joanna begs. "If we can't prove that a Romulan didn't plant the device, we could have a war on our hands."

He draws a thumb across his lower lip and tugs at it thoughtfully, then pulls a stylus from the folds of his tunic. Uhura hands him her PADD, and he draws a quick sketch of what he believes to be the device used in the attack. His fingers leave greyish smudges on the screen. "I was a communication systems engineer myself, but from what I hear about the blast, the object you're looking for will look something like this. I only know one person here who has that level of familiarity with weapon systems."

"Well, who is she?" Joanna is practically vibrating with anticipation.

"Commander T'Rehu. But she disappeared, about two months back," Rh'vaurek's eyes slide over to the doorway. "I prefer to deal in fact rather than in rumor, but a few have stated that she left to work with the Federation on something more interesting than small weapons technology."

"But why just disappear like that? She's a free citizen of the colony," Joanna insists.

"T'Rehu has shamed her people by acting in concert with the Federation. It's an act of treason, and more than sufficient grounds for execution." Rh'vaurek pushes his chair away and stands, careful not to knock over any of the storeroom's precariously balanced wares. "I have already spent more time speaking to you than is appropriate. We must continue our conversation tomorrow."

Uhura nods, her mouth tight. "Until tomorrow, Rh'vaurek."

"Until tomorrow, Commander. Remember, our little outpost here is small. While I do not doubt that we would do our utmost to defend it, it would take relatively little firepower to destroy it all. I advise you to operate with the utmost discretion."

++++

The sun bakes away the little bit of coolness that settled into the earth overnight hours before Uhura and Joanna rise for the day and make their way out of the city center and through various hastily-constructed buildings to the residential part of town. Everything is designed to be as economical as possible, there are little surplus resources focus on infrastructural niceties such as paved walkways and street lighting.

The streets of the colony grow increasingly wider as they pass through the tightly-structured homes of the initial colonists and work their way out to the newer arrivals, more secure in their ability to protect themselves out here. The only navigational clues they receive are from the map provided by Rh'Vaurek, a simple graphic with only a few identifying landmarks. Uhura resists the temptation to adjust her utility belt as a steady trickle of sweat crawls down the small of her back. It's been some time since she was out of doors in anything other than the layered dresses that are customary on Vulcan; they're much cooler than the synthetic fabrics that make up the uniforms of Starfleet.

The door to the squat structure that serves as Rh'vaurek's quarters sits wide open. Uhura's own residence looks like some kind of opulent palace in comparison--inside there's little more than a screened-off sleeping area, a table, and a few chairs. A large, multilegged insect skitters across Uhura's foot and disappears inside. A chill passes over her that has nothing to do with the temperature, and she puts an arm out to prevent Joanna from advancing further. A few agricultural tools sit in one corner, an efficiency kitchen in another. It's oddly quiet.

"What is it?" Joanna hisses, curious.

"I think someone else already paid a visit to your friend," Uhura replies. She has her phaser at the ready as she pushes aside the little privacy screen, and comes face to face with Rh'vaurek's motionless body sprawled out on his sleeping cot. His eyes are wide open, and a trickle of blood stains the corner of his mouth. Joanna makes a little choked-off noise behind her.

"It must have been a surprise," Uhura say. This was supposed to be an easy investigative mission, in and out again with enough information to go off looking for their next clue. Rigor mortis is already setting in; whoever did this is long gone by now. "No Romulan would allow someone to invade their home like this without a fight."

"Computer, lights," says Joanana, keeping the command simple. Even on the Vulcan section of the planet, the computers that control home electronics are a far cry from the sophisticaed systems back on Earth. On and off is sometimes more than they can manage.

The wound site is an ugly burn directly through the chest. Congealed green blood stains the dark fibers of his tunic. Joanna immediately pulls out her tricorder and begins scanning the body, all traces of her earlier shock pushed to the background.

"Well, looks like our mystery is solved," she says. She hands it over to Uhura, who sees nothing out of the ordinary.

"There's nothing here."

"Exactly--Romulans usually carry disruptors; if one was used as the murder weapon, the antiproton particle density would be off the charts." Joanna stands again and returns the tricorder to her holster.

Uhura holsters her phaser with a frustrated sigh, taps her foot against the pitted rock that makes up the floor. This is turning out to be uglier than even she thought it would be. "Because a disruptor didn't kill Rh'vaurek--a phaser blast did."

+++++

At Uhura’s insistence, Joanna spends the night at her house; Jim has gone back to the Carson for the night. She checks in with her father to assure him she’s not dead and doesn’t mention that someone else is.

She sleeps badly and wakes with the sun already up in the sky and a dry-mouthed late-for-work feeling, only to realize that her office has been functionally destroyed. She’s got vital information obtained from a dead witness to present to an admiral, and she’s under the same roof as the woman she’s secretly in love with. She feels rootless and alive and important, and Uhura ruins it a bit by handing her a cup of hot tea and saying, “I ran your shirt through the sonic; it was a little stinky. And your dad is wondering, and I quote, ‘when the hell he’s going to get to visit with the daughter he came halfway across the God-damned galaxy to see’.”

“Soon,” Joanna says with a laugh. “Let’s give the information to Jim, and then I can deal with my dad.”

They catch up with Jim between a Council meeting and an event at the Science Academy. Joanna catches sight of his dark blond head above a gaggle of Starfleet officers, about to disappear into the Academy’s main administration building.

“Admiral!”

The functionaries turn to look; one moves to block Jim and another reaches for his phaser. It occurs to Joanna that running pell-mell into an Admiral in a public place might not be the smartest idea, but at least it’s not the most dangerous one she’s had all day.

“Jo, aren’t you supposed to be in bed?” Jim looks puzzled, and then catches site of Uhura behind her. “Uhura?” His glance takes in her tight, un-Vulcan black pants and her phaser on her hip. “Aren’t you on administrative leave?”

“She wanted to go to the Romulan colony. Dr. McCoy asked me to go along with her. ”

“Go to the-- That’s crazy,” he says, but he looks rather pleased.

“I had a feeling the Romulans weren’t responsible, and I was right. We talked to Rh’vaurek, one of the leaders, and he was murdered right in front of us.” The words tumble out; she a little breathless and feels like she can’t talk fast enough. “It was a phaser--”

“Wait!” Jim’s command is sharp; the functionaries have fallen silent. “Let’s not discuss this here. I have a meeting that I can’t skip, but I’ll be in touch. Uhura, I’m relying on you; if anything happens to her, her father will skin us both alive.”

Joanna watches him leave, still vibrating with the need to tell. Just before the group vanishes, one of officers turns to give her a considering look, and she thinks about the long, silent reach of phaser blasts.

+++++

Joanna complains to Uhura about people not taking her seriously over a lunch of pok tar, but within the hour, Uhura gets a coded message from Kirk summoning everyone up to the U.S.S. Carson.

It takes some time for Joanna to convince her father that she’s well enough to beam up, as he’s convinced that a transporter will tax her in some way that a long, hot walk among Romulans did not. Saiehnn, Spock, and Winona beam from different locations so as not to draw attention to themselves; an unknown enemy, Jim reminds them, should be treated as omnipresent.

It’s been a year and half since Joanna has been in uniform or on a starship, and the Carson, though it’s a Newton-class science vessel of modest size, looks sleek and glossy. Walking its cool, blue-carpeted corridors, Joanna realizes how her eyes have adjusted to the sun-blasted rust and brown of New Vulcan.

Jim meets them in the transporter room and leads them to a conference room. Joanna watches crewmembers’ spines stiffen as they pass by and reminds herself that the easy familiarity she enjoys with Jim planetside is not appropriate here, on a flag officer’s ship.

They settle into plush chairs around the conference table and Joanna feels like she’s dropped into one of her father’s Enterprise stories: Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Uhura, sitting in the ready room of a starship ready to save another planet.

“Sorry for the unnecessary drama about getting aboard,” Jim says. “We’re here at the urgent request of Lieutenant McCoy, who’d like us to consider an alternate theory in the bombing. It’s your dime, Lieutenant.”

Five chairs pivot toward her, leaving her surprised and dry-mouthed. “Uh. Thank you, Admiral. I don’t--I don’t really have a formal presentation or anything. But I visited the Romulan colony this morning with Commander Uhura, and I’m convinced the colonists weren’t responsible for the bombing. In fact, the Romulan we made contact with was murdered after telling us about a number of defections to the Federation. It seems the Federation may have been recruiting spies or double agents from the colony.”

“A serious charge,” Spock says. “I assume you have proof?”

“Yes, sir.” A year of getting grilled by Vulcans at staff meetings is standing her in good stead. “I’ve submitted a preliminary list of names, and Commander Uhura got the Romulans to agree not to prepare Rh’vaurek’s body for burial until his death is investigated.”

“Well done, Lieutenant. That does, however, not alter the fact of the Romulan device found in the wreckage,” Spock says. “I presume you have another conjecture for how it got there, other than being placed in the building by a Romulan?”

“Not exactly.” Joanna flushes a little. “But it’s just a Romulan device, right? That doesn’t mean a Romulan put it there. Security’s been over weeks of surveillance vids and there were no Romulans going in or out.” She feels that she’s finding her footing now. “Someone else could have obtained the Romulan device and planted it, to incriminate the Romulans.”

“You say that no Romulans were observed on camera,” Saiehnn says. “May I ask how you visually identify a Romulan?”

Joanna’s mouth goes slack. Of course, Romulans look exactly like Vulcans; it’s only their clothing and certain mannerisms that set them apart.

“I. Uh.” Think fast, don’t look stupid, her brain urges, making her do the opposite. “Maybe--”

“All visitors to the Teslau project site are bioidentified on the way in and out,” Winona says, coming to her rescue. “If a Romulan had passed herself off as a Vulcan, she would have had to create a false identity and maintain it for months.”

“Not an impossible undertaking, in order to achieve a military objective,” says Spock.

“No, but we also do individual genome sequencing and genetic analysis,” Winona counters. “I think we can rule out undercover Romulans.”

“An inside job, then?” Jim says. “Someone who hates the project enough to do the Romulans’ dirty work for them?”

Winona frowns and fidgets with her PADD. “T’Pau unloaded on me the other morning about how the whole project was a massive affront to Vulcan identity, but I can’t see her being willing to injure Vulcan women. The Vai Ba’Tak abjure violence.”

“Maybe the injuries were an accident,” Joanna says. “An EMP device causes a lot of damage, but it didn’t kill anyone. Jim-- I mean, Admiral, Engineer Kanu said the position of the device in the building magnified the damage. So maybe the EMP discharge wasn’t supposed to be so powerful.”

“Or maybe they just didn’t care,” her father says. “Everyone knows you can’t say boo to a pregnant woman and not expect there to be consequences.”

Uhura, who’s been tapping away on her PADD with her long fingernails, looks up from the jumble of schematics scrolling by. “The Romulan we spoke to this morning was ex-military. He said rigging one of these EMP devices to a portable fuel source and a timer would be a lot of trouble and very bulky--hard to smuggle, hard to hide. What I don’t get is why the bombers didn’t go for a simple explosive. Why go to such lengths to use such a distinctive device--”

“--Unless you were trying to pin it on the Romulans. Exactly.” Joanna slaps her hand on the table, startling Saiehnn and getting a couple of amused eyebrows from her father and Jim. “They might as well have stamped the Eagle of the Tal Shiar on it.”

“Your argument is persuasive, Lieutenant,” Spock says. Joanna has enough experience with Vulcans now to know she’s not being patronized. “But until we can explain how the device was introduced into the Teslau building, we have no way to track it to its point of origin and therefore no basis for speculating on a motive.”

“I suppose you’ve considered the obvious, Jim,” Winona says. “That the device was beamed into the building? There’s no transporter block.”

“We already checked the logs of the five transporter pads on Vulcan. There’s nothing matching the morphology in the buffers, and believe me, this thing is quite distinctive.”

“The public transport sites on Uzh Shi'Kahr are not the only ones in range,” Saiehnn says. “I know of at least one other.”

“Yes?” All eyes are now on Saiehnn; Joanna’s have never been off.

“The transporter on this ship.”

Joanna feels her heart skip a beat; her eyes dart to Jim, but he’s wearing an indulgent expression: Vulcans and their passion for precision. She can see him start to shake his head--

“I know,” she says quickly, not sure what she’s going to say afterward. “I know it’s really unlikely, but wouldn’t it make sense just to check? I mean, it would prove that you’re being thorough, that you’re not showing favoritism.” She halts, a little breathless, aware that she’s just implied that Admiral Kirk could reasonably be thought careless or biased.

“You tell ‘em, baby girl,” her father says into the silence.

Jim, nonplussed, shrugs and taps his comm badge to call down to Engineering. Joanna is surprised not to hear Scotty’s voice, but of course he’s off on the Excelsior. Her feelings are conflicted; she doesn’t want to be right, but she also doesn’t want it to look like she’s grabbing at any crackpot theory to exonerate the Romulans, despite the fact that she knows, knows that the colonists aren’t responsible.

The suspense builds over long minutes. Just as her father’s offering to get out a deck of cards, Engineer Kanu comms back.

“Sir, we transported something with the morphology and mass matching the flux compression generator schematic three days ago. It went down with a load of equipment to the Teslau building.”

Jim’s formidable eyebrows draw together, and the set of his lips promises rolling heads later on. “And nobody bothered to check the shipment against the manifest?”

“We were getting around to that, sir. We usually purge the buffers and file the reports after we leave orbit.” His voice moves into a more desperate upper register. “We’re a science vessel, Admiral.”

“Anybody ever hear of a simple inventory?” Joanna’s father grumbles.

Jim, however, is looking much more pleased. “So the suspect object’s still in the buffer?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then,” Spock says, “it will be possible to reconstruct it, given some phase matter and a bit of time.”

“Nothing you can’t handle, then?”

“Not at all,” Spock says. “This is, as the engineer noted, a science vessel.”

“Good.” Jim swivels around to Joanna. “Lieutenant, I appreciate your insight and the intelligence that you and Uhura picked up in the Romulan colony. But since it seems we might have a suspect on board--” he taps his comm badge. “Security, escort Lieutenant McCoy to VIP quarters and put a double guard on the door.”

“Admiral!” Joanna stares in disbelief as her father nods approvingly. “Please let me help, I can--”

“Saiehnn should go, too,” Uhura says. Joanna’s protest dies on her lips.

“It’s just for a little while, Jo.” Jim smiles at her, but there’s a crease of worry between his eyebrows. “A precaution; I wouldn’t let anything happen to you on my ship. Besides, you’ll be in good company.”

The Gardens of the Desert, Part 2

2011-11-03T22:10:23Z

The Gardens of the Desert, Part 1

2011-11-03T22:05:59Z

Road Noise (Rhett Ryan/Jamie Forrest, PG-13)

2011-09-18T14:18:49Z

Written for the Crossover Challenge at jim_and_bones</lj>. Thanks to my lovely sangueuk for the Britpicking, which isn't the same as Kiwipicking but will have to suffice.

Summary: Sooner or later, you end up at the hotel bar at 1 AM. Features Rhett Ryan (Chris's character from Small Town Saturday Night) and Jamie Forrest (Karl's character from Shortland Street). You don't have to be familiar with either, just picture Chris and Karl. For purposes of not introducing time travel, I'm assuming it's now-ish and they're both in their late 20s.

Warning: Domestic violence by an OC.

Word count: 5K

It’s 1 AM and I don’t know what city I’m in, but it’s not my fault, even if I am sitting in a bar.

The bar’s in middle of a hotel, and the hotel is in some town in Georgia, but I’ll be fucked if I know which one. I could ask the bartender, but she’d probably cut me off. Ask the businessmen in the rumpled suits and I’m just opening myself up for hearing about their boring jobs and how much they miss their wives.

Atlanta? I think it’s Atlanta.

“What can I get you, hon?” The bartender doesn’t make eye contact. Not good for tips, but she’s spending most of her time mopping the bar, counting the minutes until she can go home.

“Beer,” I say, and then remember what kind of place I’m in. “Uh, Coors. And a shot of Jack.”

The hotel is actually a treat. Most nights I’m rocked to sleep by the highway, feet hanging off the end of the bunk, hoping the road noise will drown out Rex Hardiston’s snoring. Tomorrow’s a day off, so I get to wake up in a real bed and order room service and watch ESPN until my brain melts. The guitar’s in my room but it’s staying in the case, so fuck yeah, it’s a mini-vacation.

The Hardistons are three brothers and brother-in-law subbing for brother number four, who’s been in the slammer for five years. For the first week I thought they got along pretty well, at least until I started picking up on all the weird undercurrents: Rory (the big one) married Rance (the jailed one)’s ex. Rex got saved but doesn’t care about booze or women, as long as you don’t take the Lord’s name in vain around him. Dave (the brother-in-law) has five kids with Retta Hardiston plus a wandering eye, but the brothers watch him like a hawk, so he gets quietly drunk and gambles.

Middle-aged women who’ve loved the Hardistons since they were teenagers show up to see them at mid-sized venues and state fairgrounds. I’m supposed to be the reason they bring along their daughters and pay $25 for a T-shirt with a picture of me in tight jeans, shot from behind.

I can almost hear my buddies Dwayne and Wade laughing, except they wouldn’t. They’d be happy for me, and proud they helped me get famous. I send them stuff from the road I think would crack them up: a T-shirt from Butts & Bones Barbecue in Abilene, a refrigerator magnet with an alligator climbing out of a toilet. When I get back to Nashville I’ll ask them to visit and they won’t. They’ll never leave Prospect and we all know it, but they can live it a little bit through me.

It’s exhausting and dull, all those hours bumping over highways, except for the hour I spend on stage, pretty girls in low-cut tops crowding the stage while their parents are still in the beer line.

Still, it’s a great opportunity--that’s what I tell all the magazines. I must have said it twenty times at least: The Hardistons are legends, and it’s an honor for me to share the stage with them. The Powers That Be in country music love that shit, respect for tradition and your elders. A boy can sing about making love in the back of a pickup and eyefuck your daughter as long as he calls you “sir” when he comes off stage. Elvis had it figured out.

I’m lucky I don’t have to fake it. Mom and dad raised me right, even if it was on the wrong coast and I only sound like a country boy when I sing. That’s another reason I need the Hardistons; they’re like a direct transfusion of Carolina barbecue sauce.

The bartender slaps the drinks down in front of me and I almost don’t have energy to down the shot, but it’s sleep in a little two-ounce glass. I’m halfway through the beer when a stranger takes the seat next to me.

“What’ll it be, hon?”

“A jug of beer, please.”

The bartender’s eyebrows raise and I turn to look at the guy with the weird accent. He’s unusual looking, definitely foreign, with pale skin and black hair and almond-shaped eyes.

“Sorry,” he says, realizing he’s getting stared at. “A pint, then. You do pints here, am I right?”

The bartender nods, uninterested. I glance at the tap, making sure she doesn’t serve the poor guy some kind of Belgian shit. He looks exhausted, dark smudges under his eyes and his shirt tail half out.

“Cheers,” the guy says, and takes a good-sized gulp. I wait for him to swallow.

“So, what are you--English?”

He snorts. “Not for 100 years or so.” He can tell I don’t get it. “I’m from New Zealand.”

American geography sucks, and the way they teach it in Monroe County sucks extra hard. I squint, trying to picture it.

“Go down to Australia and turn left,” he says. “If you hit icebergs, you’ve gone too far.”

“Right. The place with all the mountains, in that movie with the trolls.”

“Yes, we’re particularly known for our trolls.”

He’s a little too quick for me, tired as I am and with a night-night dose of alcohol in me, but I slide my eyes around my glass to look him up and down. I like figuring people out, and he doesn’t fit--not a backpacker in this semi-upscale hotel, not a businessman, not with that rumpled green shirt and khakis. There’s an ID dangling around his neck, but I can’t really read it in the dim light, nothing except JAMIE in big letters.

“Sorry, I wasn’t trying to be insulting. I don’t know much about that part of the world.” Or any part of the world that doesn’t start with P or have a sound system.

The silence is easy, but after another minute, I give up. I want to hear him talk again.

“You’ve come a long way. You here for a conference or something?”

“Yup. International AIDS conference.”

Well, that’s a conversation killer. “You a doctor?” It’s a shot in the dark; he looks much too young, almost baby faced.

“No, I’m with an NGO.” Still lost. “A non-profit. I’m an educator.”

“Hey, that’s--” My brain goes places that are probably rude and 10 years out of date, but I can’t help it. The guy is well groomed and good looking and smells a little too nice for 1 AM. And his day job is teaching kids how to put condoms on bananas or something--well, a guy has to wonder.

“That’s great,” I say at last, and decide to shut my idiot mouth.

He starts to say something else but then another guy walks up, tall and blond and a little leathery, like a surfer.

“There you are,” the guy says to Jamie. “Jesus Christ, I’ve been hanging about for hours. No answer on your cell, me thinking you’re lying in a ditch somewhere and instead you’re right here, having a beer, calm as you like.”

The guy has the same accent as Jamie, but the difference is that I hate him. He doesn’t sound angry like he’s upset, he sounds angry like he’s been crossed. He’s up in Jamie’s personal space, and Jamie isn’t giving an inch.

“I told you I’d be back when I got back. It’s been a long day, all right? I needed to unwind.”

The blond guy’s gaze flicks to me. “Oh, I bet you did.”

“Hey, now--” Jamie puts his hands up, the calm down gesture that never works. “Sorry, I’m sorry. Let’s not have this argument here.”

“Why? You don’t want all these good people to know what an untrustworthy little bugger you are?” The guy’s voice is low, but full of venom. This isn’t an old argument getting rehashed, it’s something ugly coming to a head. If there’s one thing Prospect made me an expert in, it’s the countless ways people can fuck with each other.

“I said, not here.” They’re chest-to-chest now, glaring at each other, and the bored bartender is finally paying attention.

“Gentlemen, I’m going to have to ask you--”

“Yeah, yeah. We were just leaving. Pay the lady and come upstairs, now.”

Jamie pulls a handful of bills from his pocket and throws them on the bar without looking at them. “No.”

“For fuck’s sake.” The blond guy looks like he’s going to explode, and the bartender reaches for the phone. I don’t know if nice hotels have the kind of security that can control a guy like this.

Blond Guy doesn’t look at her; he keeps his attention on Jamie. If he’s going to blow, this will be the moment, when his authority is questioned. I can feel the muscles in my shoulder bunch up, getting ready to jump aside or maybe punch the blond guy in the nose, because I really, really hate his bullying tone.

There’s an airless moment where his gaze flicks from the bartender to Jamie to me, and then he makes the decision not to get decked or arrested.

“I’m going for a walk,” Jamie says, turns, and strides out of the bar. A half-dozen pairs of eyes follow him, but I keep mine on the angry guy, which is just Bar Fight 101.

The blond guy turns red and makes noises like an engine overheating, all that built-up hostile energy with nowhere to go. He’d kick a chair or turn over a table if there were any handy, but there aren’t, so he throws a defiant look at the bar in general and stalks off in the same direction Jamie went.

There’s a kind of general sigh, maybe disappointment, mostly from the businessmen, who’ve been on high alert, happy that something interesting is happening, something they can tell their wives about.

One of the businessmen catches my eye and raises an eyebrow. “Emotional, aren’t they?”

“People from New Zealand? I wouldn’t know.”

Of course it was obvious to me they were a couple. You only get that kind of deep, multi-layered hate going with family or lovers. Of course, it’s none of my business.

I uncrumple the bills Jamie left on the bar. There’s more than 40 dollars. A teacher can’t make much money, and he probably has no idea what American money is worth. And I’m worried, because that blond fucker was mad, and when you’re stressed and a long way from home things can happen that wouldn’t happen if there was someone to pull you back from the cliff.

So I pay my tab and Jamie’s, pocket his money (the bartender doesn’t notice), and head in the same direction as the other guys, which turns out to be out the side door of the hotel.

There’s not much out there--an alley between two tall buildings with an entrance to the parking garage. As places to have an argument go, the garage is a pretty good bet--dimly lit and empty at this time of the early morning. I walk to the not-full side and see two figures in silhouette, one on the ground, one standing over it.

I break into a run. The tall figure sees me, hesitates for a second, and then turns and runs himself. As I close the distance I see longish blond hair flying and feel a strong desire to kick some surfer ass, but he vanishes into a stairwell and Jamie is lying on the ground, maybe needing help.

“Hey,” I roll him over and lay a hand on his cheek. There’s blood on his temple and the beginnings of a bruise on his cheekbone. “Can you hear me?” I can’t remember if it’s head injuries you’re not supposed to move or busted spines.

“Fine. I’m fine.” He sounds a little scratchy and dazed, but he pushes up onto his elbows. My heart is thumping, my brain still expecting a fight.

“Hold still. I’ll call an ambulance.”

“No need.” He makes a half-assed grab for my wrist as I reach for my phone. “He didn’t knock me out.”

“But still--”

“I know what I’m doing. I used to be an ambo driver.” He gets a blank look. “A paramedic, you’d call it.”

“Oh.” I put an arm under his elbow and help him to his feet. He’s a little wobbly, and also a big guy; tall as me, and broader, even if the way he carries himself--a little hunched over, in a shirt that’s too big--is meant to play it down. “I hope you gave as good as you got?”

“There’s nothing between me and Terry that a punch in the jaw will solve.”

“He didn’t think so.” I’m not a fighter, either, but it’s the only language those assholes understand.

“Yeah, well.” He looks almost embarrassed. “Listen, mate, thanks for the help, but there’s no need to involve you in this. Don’t worry about me, I’m alright. Really.”

“Okay, but--” I pull the wad of cash from my pocket. “You overpaid by about a thousand percent. Also, where are you staying?”

He stares open-mouthed at the cash and runs a hand through his hair. “Right. That’s a good point. I think the hotel's full up, but--”

“You can stay with me if you’d like.” I have no idea where that comes from. His being gay doesn’t really bother me--not so far, anyway--but my brain stalls out on how the offer must look to him. If he were a girl who’d just had a fight with her boyfriend it would be creepy, right? But there’s no chance I’d hit on him. But he doesn’t know that. “I’m not gay. Just so you know.”

The corners of his mouth curve up a little. “No worries, mate. I just broke up with my boyfriend in a car park, I’m completely knackered, and I have to be up at 7 AM. Not much of a threat to your virtue, if you get me.”

“I’m not worried. I already know you’re shit at fighting, anyway.” He starts to laugh and then winces and touches his cheek. I’m not regretting my offer at all. He seems like a decent guy for whom the shit has hit the fan late at night in a foreign country. For me, it’s just one of those weird things that happens on tour, more interesting than reruns of CSI.

“My name’s Jamie, by the way,” he says, looking down at the name tag that’s still dangling around his neck. “In case you hadn’t worked it out.”

“I’m Rhett.”

“Seriously? Like Rhett Butler?”

“Yup.” My mom loved that movie. She liked Clark Gable but she had a special thing for Leslie Howard--my brother Les paid for that one.

I show him to my room and go to get some ice. When I come back, he’s stretched out--at least as far as he can be--on the little sofa, an arm draped over his head.

“Take the bed.” There’s only one, a king. “I’m used to sofas.”

“Me, too. I can’t take your bed, you’ve already gone above and beyond. Very nice advert for Americans, by the way.”

“Oh, please. Just get over here so I can get this ice on your face.” The kind of bruise you get from knuckles on your face looks like nothing else on the planet and I’m sure he knows it, but the ice will help. Maybe in the morning I can get hold of some of the stage makeup that I’m not supposed to know the Hardistons use.

He grunts and moves over to the bed, under the light where I can see the bruise developing, all nice and purple. I also get a better look at his face. He doesn’t look like anybody I’ve ever seen. His lips are full, like a girl’s, and his eyes turn from brown to green in the light. He could a model or an actor, except I’m guessing that the life would appeal to him about as much as being a teacher would appeal to me.

I bring him a hand towel and he wraps the ice up, neat and professional, and holds it against his face.

“A paramedic? You must have some stories.”

“Yeh, and a lot of them start in bars at 1 AM. No surprise, eh?”

I’m sitting on the edge of the bed next to him, a near stranger in my hotel room, but it doesn’t feel awkward at all. Part of it’s him, and part of it’s because fucked-up relationships are familiar territory, Prospect’s favorite pastime. Half of us are screw-ups, cheaters and brawlers; the other half enablers and fence menders and door mats. I’m done being either for a while, but I worry that it’s inside of me, like a skill for riding a fucked-up bicycle.

“So what do you do for a living?” Jamie says after a bit. “All I know about you is that you’re not gay.”

“What else do you need to know?” He smiles, as much as he can under three inches of towel and ice, which is good--he’s not a wallower, anyway. “I’m a musician.”

“Ah, the guitar.” Jamie nods toward it, leaning up against the TV stand. “You any good? What do you play?”

“Country music, mostly. Do you have that in New Zealand?”

“Nothing but sheep and cows from North Cape to the Bluff--what do you think?”

“I honestly don’t know. I’ve never been outside of the country. I want to. I want to travel more than anything. But at this point it’s mostly truck stops and civic centers.” I stop, because I’m not sure if he’s asking questions just to be polite. He obviously doesn’t want to talk about his problems, and I doubt he wants to hear about mine. “Want me to turn on the TV or something?”

“No thanks. What I’d really like is to hear you play a little.”

That surprises me because it seems personal, and then I’m surprised I see it that way. I play for thousands of people every night, after all. But I haven’t played for one person, alone, in a while. Not since Sam.

The pause goes on long enough that he puts up a hand and says, “That was rude, wasn’t it? You’re a professional. For all I know you’re famous in America.”

“I’m not quite famous yet anywhere. But I’ll play a little, if it’ll help.” I walk over to the mini bar and pull out a couple of beers. “This’ll probably help, too.”

“You’re a godsend, mate.”

I sit on the edge of the bed, at the end, one foot on the floor, like I’ve been playing since I was 12. I play low and quiet, even though I can tell the neighbors are awake--there’s thumping from next door and occasional female giggling. At least someone’s having a good night.

I strum for a little while, seeing what’ll pop into my head, and I’m surprised when it’s “The Backward Road.” I haven’t played it for anyone else, because it’s more rock than country, and because it’s about Sam, or at least more about her than the rest of my songs. It just seems like a good song for late at night. There’s a fifth verse that’s been rattling around in my head for a while, and for some reason it comes together now

Lost, I’m lost in space without a map
If I asked you, would you tell me how to take it back?
The backward road...

Maybe not my best, but it’s what I feel like playing. I take my time, improvising between the verses, not looking at Jamie or anything else in particular.

When I play the last chord, I finally look up and see that Jamie has tears in his eyes. I feel bad and kind of pleased at the same time.

“Sorry,” he says, coughing, and wiping at his eyes as best as he can with a towel on his face. “You’re really good. You must sell a lot of records.”

It’s a compliment, and not just the way he means. “Were you with him a long time?”

He nods, chin a little shaky. “Eight months, but I had high hopes. I’ve always got high hopes.” He thumps the bed with his hand. “I don’t understand. What I want isn’t complicated. Everybody says they want love, but they know bugger all what they mean about it.”

“I can’t say I do either, but what I saw in that garage wasn’t it.”

“I’m well rid of him, I know.” He’s got a fistful of crumpled bedsheet, holding on for dear life. “It doesn’t feel that way, though. It feels like I’ve lost something important.”

There’s nothing I can say, so I do what I know how to do. I keep playing, just instrumentals, and after a while I see his eyelids drooping. I slide off the bed and put the guitar back in its case, and I’m halfway across the room when he starts awake.

“Hey. I’m not letting you take the sofa, remember?”

I try to wave it off but he’s off the bed already, unbuttoning his shirt. “Just let me drop my gear, all right? Down to boxers, is that okay?”

“Fine by me.” The sofa isn’t really a sofa, it’s a boxy love seat covered in the same beige sandpaper as every other fucking hotel sofa. We’ve both managed to act like decent human beings tonight, and so neither of us deserves a metal frame in the midsection. “You know, I’ve shared sleeping bags with guys before. Huntin’ buddies. My friend Wade won’t sit next to me in the movie theater, but he’ll zip his sleeping bag together with mine to stop from freezing his balls off.”

“Really?” Jamie tosses his shirt on the chest of drawers and goes for his belt buckle. “I hear you can get pregnant that way.”

“Ha. Anyhow, I--” I point at the bed at the same moment his pants his the floor. “Well.”

He purses his lips and rolls his eyes toward the ceiling. “Just get in.”

“I have to change first.” And take a piss, which is a good excuse to change in the bathroom, which I now feel like a complete ass for doing. But shit, it’s weird how not-weird it is. I come out in a T-shirt and the five-year-old striped PJ bottoms I wear on the road in case of fire alarms, which happen more often than you’d think.

Jamie’s already on his side with the light off--his left side, the non-bruised side, facing away from me. I click the other light out and try to adjust to the feeling of a large other person in the bed.

“G’night,” he says, already half asleep.

“ ‘Night.” The last thing though that goes through my head is I wonder if I’ll be able to get to sleep.

+++++

I wake up with a dry mouth and the usual five seconds of where am I. There’s no light leaking under the heavy curtains, so I guess it’s still before dawn, although hotels are one of those places like casinos that make a business of hiding what time it is.

I haven’t forgotten about Jamie, especially since his shin is touching mine. Technically it’s my fault, since I’m in the middle of the bed and he must be half hanging off the side, so I feel weird about jerking it away because it’s not like it’s burning, and I don’t want to wake him up.

After a few minutes, I hear the bed groan and he rolls halfway over.

“You awake?”

“Yeah.” His voice is husky and low, scratchy with sleep. There’s no point in moving now and besides, I don’t feel like it. I like the size and weight of him, the way he fills the bed, the warmth of another body in the stale icebox air of the hotel room, somebody to talk to. Why shouldn’t I do what I like, in the dark in an unknown city, where there’s nobody to see? I wait for Wade to show up like one of those little devils in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, sitting on my shoulder and reminding me he’d rather give his Terry Baker autographed football to Hillary Clinton than share a bed with another guy. Fuck him, though; it’s an experience, like the thunderstorm at the Kentucky State Fair. I played through that, too.

“Thanks,” he says after a while. He sounds tired, maybe a little low, like he’s been awake for a while, brooding. “Thanks for being a pal, and for being cool with this. If it hadn’t been for you, I’d’ve probably crashed out at the bus station or something.”

I think about it a little--what he’s not saying, and what I suspect. He’s an honest guy; he’ll tell me to fuck off if it’s too much, so I go ahead and ask.

“It’s not the first time he hit you, is it?”

A long pause, and he shifts, restless, like he’s itchy with memories. “No. It wasn’t often, but each time I thought he I knew the reason. I thought I could figure him out and change it, stop it. Because if I loved him enough, or if I was a good enough counselor, I could do it. And I screwed it up anyway.”

“I know the feeling.” I know the feeling of putting everything you own in garbage bags and driving away, of blowing the audition to the be the man in somebody’s life. “But he was the asshole who failed, not you.”

He digests that for a while, not believing yet, but it’s still important for him to hear.

“I never asked. If you have anyone yourself.” His voice is so close. Secrets in the dark, something I’ve always liked. And laughing, but now’s not the time.

“I was in love with a girl, with her for two years. She had a daughter I loved like my own kid. She dumped me and went back to her ex the day we were supposed to leave town together."

“Bugger. That’s rough.”

“Yeah. Bad for life, great for songwriting.” Half the songs on my album are about Sam, but not in a way that will make her feel bad, I hope.

“It’s hard to imagine anyone leaving you.” A nice thing to say, since he doesn’t know anything about me. I tried so hard with Sam; I became a father and a guy with a shitty regular job and I waited two years to go to Nashville, and it ended up no different than if I’d been a pig from the beginning.

“I know. I make really good waffles.” I stretch, and wrap my arms around my pillow, under my head. My elbow brushes up against Jamie’s hair, and it’s soft. Still not bothered, because there’s no way I can imagine him making a move on me, and if he did, my elbow’s conveniently near his eye.

“What the fuck’s wrong with us?”

I know that cry of desperation, of a billion lonely people: I deserve love, so where the fuck is it? But love isn’t a thing that shows up like a migrating bird; it’s something two people create, plus maybe chemicals or sunspots or some science shit I don’t understand.

I can’t answer, so I don’t. After a while he says, “Pretty clear what’s wrong with me. I pack a sad off two beers and a punch in the face, and a handsome cowboy invites me into his bed and I cry all over it. Awful.” He rolls back onto his left side, away from me. “I’ll sleep now, I promise. Least I don’t snore.”

He’s not feeling better, he’s feeling guilty and pathetic, sad and ugly, the way I get when I cry--red-faced and snotty, a distant relation to that guy on the album cover looking clear-eyed toward the mountains. I wonder what the daytime version of Jamie is like: wearing a white shirt and tie, giving talks full of medical terms, being all calm and confident with people who’ve just gotten bad news. I can totally imagine him as an EMT, soaking up everybody’s panic and making them think everything’s going to be okay. He’s got the kind of strength that comes from being honest with yourself, and right now he’s honestly a guy who got confirmation the person he loves is an asshole.

Rolling onto my left side brings me about six inches away from Jamie’s back, as near as I can tell. I reach out my hand and let it hover just above his arm, where it’s curled around his body.

“Hey,” I say quietly. “This okay?”

He seems to know what “this” is, even if I don’t. “Yeh, it’s nice. Carry on.”

I let my hand come to rest on his shoulder and slide in closer, not quite touching, but near enough that he can feel the heat of my body. He shifts back just a little, relaxes the not-touching-you muscles, and sighs. I let my hand slide down, everything safe territory because he’s a guy, nothing but arms and chest and space. And now I have my arm and most of my body around a guy, and nobody’s breaking down the door or putting the video on YouTube. All that’s happening is the guy is calming down and falling asleep.

This? This is something that could never happen in Prospect. It can only happen in a hotel room in city that might be Atlanta, between a country musician on tour and a medical whatever from the south side of the world. It can happen because we’re good guys when other people aren’t, dedicated to not making the world suck any more than it has to. I like making waffles for people and I like playing them music, and if that makes me a hero, well then, buy my album. Just don’t expect me to give up this little bit of freedom, because I’ve been waiting a long time for it. We all have.