Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Coming to is so very different this time around, because the first thing that Leonard is aware of is the steady warmth in his chest, the gentle thrumming of his bond with Jim holding at bay the memories of the devastating emptiness that had taken its place. He reaches for it with an almost desperate urgency, as if it will slip away from him again, and it responds readily, warming him with Jim’s presence. His breath hitches in his chest. He’d thought he would never feel that again.

He relaxes a little as he wakes up more fully, grounding himself in the knowledge that Jim is alive. He takes a deep breath and opens his eyes, and this time it’s not a chore.

He evidently still has a guardian though. Nyota is perched on a chair beside his bed, padd in hand and expression stern as she watches him. Leonard closes his eyes again quickly. His entire body aches and he is exhausted down to his very bones, and the last thing he feels like dealing with is a lecture.

“You can’t honestly think that’s going to work.”

Leonard grimaces, but gives up on the rather childish avoidance tactic. He tries to sit up, realizes his body isn’t entirely on board with that plan, and settles for turning his head to face his friend.

“Jim?”

“He’s still unconscious, but he’s going to be fine.” That’s Carol’s voice, and Leonard looks up to see her striding through the door to what appears to be his very own room in Starfleet Med.

“And Spock is sitting with him,” Nyota adds. “So you have no excuse for getting out of this bed within the next twenty-four hours.”

“That’s not happening,” Leonard states flatly, because there’s not a force on earth that can keep him from Jim that long after all this.

Nyota’s expression turns fierce.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done to yourself, Len?” she demands. “You had enough drugs in your system to kill an elephant when you collapsed!”

“I knew what I was-”

“And you’ve been doing everything with a broken arm for the past week because you didn’t bother telling anyone you were hurt!”

Leonard blinks in surprise at that one, because all right, yes his arm has been hurting ever since that damned torpedo nearly took it clean off, but he hadn’t known it was actually broken. Must have only been a hairline fracture. But Nyota isn’t done.

“You know what you’d do if one of your patients pulled something like this, and if you think we’re going to let you-”

“Ny, I love you, but if you think you’re going to keep me from Jim, then you are sorely mistaken,” Leonard interrupts again, holding his friend’s gaze unflinchingly. “So if you want me to stay in this bed, then I suggest that you move it to where he is.”

He knows it’s an argument that he’s going to win. He was there on the bridge with her when they thought Spock was going to die in that volcano, and he watched what that did to her. He knows she understands at least a fraction of what he’s feeling.

Nyota stares him down for a long moment, but then her gaze softens grudgingly. She looks at Carol, who sighs.

“You know, sometimes I wish more than anything that I’d gotten a soulmark,” the science officer says, tapping commands into the controls of Leonard’s biobed. “But then I come to my senses.”

Most of Leonard is focused on Jim, on the need to see him again, but he still registers her words. He thinks he knows what she means. When the soulmark first appeared on his arm all those years ago, he’d never imagined it would lead him to anything like this. He doesn’t think he would have been quite so excited about it if he had.

But his bed is moving before he can give that much more thought, and he realizes that his friends must have known this was inevitable, because his soulmate’s room is right across the hall. Soon Leonard’s bed is next to his, and he drinks in the sight of Jim, of the rise and fall of his chest unassisted by any machine, of the tinge of color to his skin that was so horrifyingly absent in death.

Leonard reaches across the gap between their beds, ghosting a hand over Jim’s cheek. It is warm to the touch, and he has to shut his eyes against the fresh wave of emotion that hits him. He finds Jim’s shoulder and grips it tightly, struggling to convince himself that this is real, that he won’t open his eyes to find himself at a funeral.

Jim remains warm and solid and alive under his hand, and after a moment he pulls himself together, because right now Jim needs a doctor more than a soulmate. Leonard has already wasted precious time that he should have been spending checking on Jim’s vitals and neural function. He opens his eyes and does his best to sit up, ignoring the frankly alarming amount of effort it takes and the looks he gets from Carol and Nyota.

“Chart,” he says to Spock, who is standing on the other side of Jim’s bed.

Spock hands it over without protest, but his watchful gaze is on Leonard rather than his patient. Leonard elects to ignore that for the moment. He pages through Jim’s chart one handed - he can’t seem to make the other one let go of his soulmate - and is relieved by what greets him. All of Jim’s vitals are stable, as close to normal as they had been since Khan’s first attack. And his neural readings, evidence of that incredible mind, are nearly an exact match to the baseline they have on hand.

Leonard’s eyes blur as he stares down at the data. He takes a couple of deep breaths and finally looks up again at Spock.

“He’s going to be fine,” he whispers, his voice coming out thick and gravelly.

Spock’s eyes warm, even as his expression remains steady.

“So it would seem, Doctor.”

Everyone is kind enough to leave him alone as the tears begin to drip down Leonard’s cheeks.

*****

The next two weeks are like some kind of purgatory. It’s agony, waiting for Jim to wake up. His vital signs remain steady, his neural readings normal, but Leonard can’t shake the fear that he still might lose Jim somehow. And although he checks their repaired bond and glances at his new soulmark more often than he blinks, they don’t give him much comfort. Instead they just make him think of what it would be like to reach for the bond and find it absent again, to look at his hand and see only the ghost of a word there. He is plagued by the knowledge of all the ways this could still go wrong. Every harmless little beep from Jim’s monitors could be a sign that he’s about to start crashing, every new tricorder reading is an opportunity to find some new issue. Needless to say, the state of Leonard’s nerves doesn’t do much improving.

He really did a number on himself too. While he hasn’t taken any more stimulants since Jim stabilized, he’d already screwed up his body chemistry pretty spectacularly. He can’t even argue when Geoff tells him in no uncertain terms that he’s been admitted as a patient. It’s hard to claim that you’re fine when you can barely stand and can’t even keep down water, much less solid food. He does insist on staying in Jim’s room though, what with the crushing anxiety that seizes him whenever his soulmate is out of sight. Good times all around.

Geoff helps him keep an eye on Jim while he’s still bedridden, and he’s grateful, even though he knows that his colleague is also using it as an opportunity to keep a sharp watch on him. Leonard can hardly deny that the scrutiny is warranted. He feels like utter crap as everything that he took works its way out of his system, and he’s not too proud to admit that he’s in rough shape. But he also knows that there’s very little his friends can do to fix what’s wrong with him.

His recovery isn’t aided any by the fact that despite his utter exhaustion, he can barely sleep. Even with his bed so close to Jim’s that he can reach over and hang onto his soulmate’s hand, he struggles to make himself believe that Jim will still be there when he wakes. What little rest he does manage to get is fleeting and fitful, plagued by painful nightmares. More than once he’s woken in a blind panic, convinced that he’d felt Jim go cold again or heard the monitors start wailing the alarm for a cardiac arrest.

Despite all of this however, they both slowly improve. More and more of Jim’s damaged cells are replaced by healthy ones, and his heart pumps more strongly than ever as if in defiance of the fact that it couldn’t for a while. And Leonard comes out on the other side of his detox a few pounds too light and a little unsteady on his feet, but he does come out of it. He reclaims his role as Jim’s primary physician and graduates from barely sleeping in a biobed of his own to barely sleeping on a cot in the corner of his soulmate’s room.

And still the interminable wait drags on.

As word gets out about Jim’s improved condition, more and more crewmembers stop by to visit. Many of them eye Leonard nervously, and he feels a growing sense of shame as he realizes how badly he’s let them down. He’s barely given them a thought since he realized he had a chance of saving Jim. He’d ignored all of them, except for the unfortunate ones that had gotten in his way or tried to take care of him. Those he had lashed out at, letting them become the undeserving targets of his unbearable pain and fear. Those poor, brave souls who had been through the same disaster he had, who had maybe not lost soulmates but who had certainly lost friends, crewmates, their captain. Who shouldn’t have had to effectively lose their CMO as well. Hadn’t Leonard sworn to himself that he would look after them, be there for them in their time of crisis? But not only has he failed to do that, he’s made them afraid to come to him.

“No one blames you, Doc,” Scotty tells him when he sees the way Leonard watches a particularly aprehensive young ensign leaving after a short visit. “Even the ones who don’t have soulmates know that you were going through the impossible. They know you did the best you could.”

“If that was the best I could do, what the hell does that say about me?” Leonard demands.

Scotty fixes him with a look. It’s far too serious an expression for his normally cheerful face, but that’s been the story of the last couple weeks, hasn’t it?

“What do you think of me, Doctor?” he asks. “Do you think I’m a good engineer, a good man?”

Leonard blinks, his gut clenching.

“Of course, Scotty,” he says quietly.

“And would you still think that if I told you I couldn’t get out of bed for two months after my Amelia died? If I told you all of the horrible things I called my sister when she tried to bring me food and get me to go outside? If I told you I threw a chronometer at my nephew when he came to try to cheer me up?”

“You were grieving-” Leonard protests.

“And you were doing more than that. You were fighting. You were doing whatever it took. And you bloody well won. You may not have been the warmest person to be around while you were doing it, but Leonard, you gave these people their captain back. They’re nothing but grateful.”

Leonard doesn’t quite know how to believe him, but he hopes Scotty’s right.

*****

Leonard doesn’t need the readings to tell him when Jim shifts from a coma to regular sleep. God knows he’s studied Jim’s sleeping face enough, and he recognizes the subtle change, the tiny wrinkle that appears in his forehead, the slight downturn of his lips. The expression makes Leonard’s breath catch in his chest, because of all the signs of life that Jim has expressed over the last two weeks, this feels the most remarkable.

He will never forget the first morning he and Jim shared after acknowledging their bond. He will never forget the sheer relief that flooded him when he woke tangled up with his best friend, his soulmate, and realized that the previous night had not been a dream. Jim had still been asleep, wrapped around Leonard like he had no intention of letting go anytime in the next century, and Leonard had never felt such deep contentment, such peace. He’d spent the hour that it took for Jim to wake up simply looking, settling into the idea that this was his to keep, that he would get a thousand mornings like this. And then Jim had woken up, and the smile that lit his face when he saw Leonard could have warmed the furthest reaches of space.

But they hadn’t gotten a thousand mornings like that. They hadn’t even gotten a year. And while Leonard has never wanted anything as much as he wants to see Jim wake up again, now that it is finally imminent, some part of him doesn’t feel ready for it. And that scares him.

Spock comes in as he’s stripping the blankets off of his cot and preparing to fold it up. The Vulcan raises an eyebrow and shoots a quick glance at Jim.

“Has something changed?” he asks.

“Jim’s going to wake up soon.” Speaking the words aloud sends a jolt through Leonard. “Next several hours, probably.”

“That is good news.” Spock says it with a touch of uncertainty, no doubt brought on by whatever the hell Leonard’s face looks like in that moment.

“Yeah.”

“But he will still have to remain here for some time while he recovers.”

“Yeah.”

Spock’s face pinches into that expression he gets when humans are being particularly puzzling and he doesn’t understand why. Leonard is aware that he’s being a bit difficult, but he can’t really bring himself to care that much.

“Doctor, you have hardly left the Captain’s side in the past fifteen-point-seven days,” Spock presses on, despite Leonard’s reticence. “He has been out of danger for much of that time, and your presence has made little difference. Yet now that he is on the verge of being able to appreciate your company, you appear to be preparing to leave him.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Spock,” Leonard sighs, abandoning his task for the moment and straightening up to face the Vulcan. “Trust me, I can’t. I wish-”

He breaks off, shaking his head in frustration. He casts a look over at Jim, still sleeping obliviously. How the hell had they gotten here?

“I’m going to be here for him,” he says, returning his attention to Spock. “Because after the physical and psychological trauma he’s been through, he’s going to need me. And I don’t want him to see how much of a mess I’ve been. It’s bad enough that you and the others had to witness it, and there’s no reason for Jim to have to. Christ, he died, Spock, and he doesn’t need to be worried about me when he’s going to have so much of his own crap to deal with. So yes, I’m packing up the bed, and the first person to tell Jim that I’ve been sleeping here, or that I collapsed and had to be admitted, is gonna have to sleep with one eye open for the rest of time. This is about him, not me.”

Spock says nothing for a moment, but his gaze is uncomfortably piercing as he studies Leonard.

“While your desire to help Jim is understandable, and admirable, I do not think it wise to ignore your own trauma, Doctor,” he says eventually.

Leonard glowers at him.

“I lost my soulmate, and I fell apart. I saved my soulmate, and now I’m fine. There: trauma addressed.”

Spock’s eyebrow climbs to new heights on his face.

“Please do not think that my incomprehension of the finer nuances of human behavior makes me so ignorant that I would believe that your condition could even loosely be described as ‘fine,’” he says.

Leonard’s scowl deepens.

“I’m more fine than he is,” he argues instead of what they both know would be an empty denial.

“I disagree.”

Leonard is speechless for a moment in the face of Spock’s calm rejection. But it’s just one more thing he can’t deny, and he looks away.

“The best thing I can do for myself right now is take care of Jim,” he says. “And maybe that’s not healthy, but it is what it is.”

Spock lets out one of his almost-sighs, but he doesn’t try to argue further. He simply bends down to finish folding up the bed and pushes it out into the hallway for an orderly to collect. Then he returns, and deposits himself in one of the chairs at Jim’s bedside. His manner makes it clear that he has no intention of leaving.

Leonard is too grateful to argue, so the two of them wait in silence for their captain to awake.

*****

Jim is adrift. He is enveloped in a darkness that is as vast as it is absolute, as cold as it is chaotic and confusing. It presses in on him from all sides, surrounding him with a senseless cacophony. The voices of the living and the dead cry out to him, but he belongs with neither and he doesn’t know where to turn. He is lost, unmoored, alone like he hasn’t been for years.

But then he feels it, that warm presence, that steady anchor in his soul. He latches onto it and holds tight, lets it wrap him in tenderness and safety, follows its gentle pull. And then suddenly the darkness releases him, and the world floods back in. He gasps, pulling air into lungs that shouldn’t work, and his eyes shoot open. The white brightness of his surroundings nearly blinds him, but he is too grateful to be out of the darkness to care.

The first thing he really sees is the figure standing beside his bed, and even though none of this makes sense and he’s still feeling a bit lost, he relaxes.

“Bones,” he murmurs, treasuring the name even though it comes out raspy and barely audible.

He has no idea what happened, but Bones is here, so nothing else really matters.

Bones looks at him then, and Jim’s breath is stolen by the wave of borrowed emotion that hits him, too chaotic and powerful to even begin to sort through. But then it recedes as quickly as it arrived. Bones smiles at him, and something about it doesn’t seem quite right, but Jim doesn’t have the energy or the focus to figure out why.

“I died,” he croaks, and he’s not checking for confirmation exactly, because he’s pretty damn certain of that fact, but he is hoping for some kind of reassurance.

Something flickers in Bones’ eyes, but his small smile stays firmly in place.

“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic,” he says, and his voice is a little rougher than Jim remembers it, but it’s still the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard. “You were barely dead.”

He goes on with an explanation about serums and transfusions, fiddling with his medical equipment all the while, but Jim barely listens.

It’s a bit of an adjustment, going from pain and fear and trying to come to grips with the utter certainty that his life was ending, to suddenly having a future stretching out before him again. He should’ve known that he had nothing to fear from death. He should’ve known that Bones would be too stubborn to let little things like the fundamental laws of the universe take his patient from him. But he hadn’t known. And now his return to life is disorienting and oddly unsettling. There is a pit in his gut and an ache in his chest, and everything feels slightly off.

As he studies Bones though, notices the shadows in his eyes that his smiles can’t quite dispel, notices the way he won’t quite meet Jim’s gaze, he begins to realize that his growing unease is originating from his soulmate, not himself.

“Are you all right?” he asks once he’s assured Bones that he hasn’t taken on any of Khan’s less savory qualities as a result of his treatment.

The question makes Bones’ expression pinch, and something in Jim’s chest goes cold as he feels his soulmate retreat from their bond, his emotions firmly closed off.

Jim takes that as a very definite ‘no.’ He frowns and extends a hand, taking Bones by the left arm and snaking his fingers up the sleeve of his crisp white uniform. It's a tight fit, but he’s had plenty of practice, and he could find that soulmark in his sleep. He knows exactly where to run his fingers, where to touch to send a pulse of comfort that will soothe the weary pain from Bones’ features. But his touch is met with nothing, no tingle of warmth, no thrum of connection.

Bones jerks back, and Jim stares at him, stunned and dismayed.

“Bones-”

“Spock wants to see you,” Bones interrupts, already backing away to reveal the man in the doorway.

He turns and all but runs from the room as Spock enters in his place. All of Jim’s instincts are clamoring at him now and he tries to get up to follow, but the protests of his abused body would have stopped him even if the firm Vulcan hand on his shoulder hadn’t.

“You require rest, Captain,” Spock tells him. “Dr. McCoy will return.”

Jim stares after Bones for a moment, but then forces himself to focus on his first officer. Spock looks tidy and composed as usual in his regulation greys, but Jim remembers the last time he saw him. He remembers the pain written so clearly across those usually stoic features, remembers the humbled astonishment that filled him as he watched actual tears escape to slide down the Vulcan’s cheeks. A surge of warm affection chases away his worry for a moment, and he musters up a smile for his friend.

“Sounds like I owe you one,” he says.

“You saved my life, Captain, and the lives of all the crew-” Spock tries to demur, but Jim cuts him off.

“Spock, just – thank you.” He’s talking about more than tracking down and retrieving Khan, and he tries to convey that. Spock was there for him when he was dying, when his body was racked with pain and that cold emptiness was creeping inexorably up on him. He was a comfort when Jim denied himself his steadying connection to his soulmate; a friend desperately needed at the very end.

Spock seems to understand, because his shoulders relax just a little, and a trace of a smile appears on his features.

“You are welcome, Jim,” he says, and there’s warmth in that level tone.

Jim’s smile widens, but he can’t keep it up for long. He glances at the door, frowning, as his thoughts return to the man who fled through it. He probes searchingly at the bond in his chest, but Bones has retreated, closed himself off, and Jim can feel nothing from him other than the fact that he’s still there.

It’s something they’ve both done before, but only after the few real fights they’ve had, when they needed time to cool down and keep their emotions to themselves. And, of course, it was something Jim had done when he was lying in a glass box flooded with deadly radiation, anxious to shield his soulmate from the fear and agony of his death. Needless to say, it’s never a sign of anything good.

“Is Bones all right?” he asks, because he didn’t get an answer from the man himself last time he posed the question.

Spock’s almost-smile vanishes, and Jim’s stomach tightens.

“Dr. McCoy is exhausted in every sense of the word.” Jim doesn’t think he’s imagining the touch of concern buried in the Vulcan’s eyes. “And if I am reading his rather unpredictable and markedly human emotions correctly, there is little that you can do to help, aside from focusing on your own convalescence.”

Jim stares for a moment, because Spock basically just told him to back off. That’s not gonna work for him, not if something is wrong with Bones.

Spock seems to realize that he’s on the verge of trying to make a break for it again, because he shifts slightly to put himself between Jim and the door.

“Captain. You must not press this.”

Was Spock being…protective? It’s something Jim knows his first officer is capable of, of course, but he’s never seen it employed in Bones’ defense.

You were out cold for two weeks, he suddenly remembers Bones saying.

Two weeks. It feels like Jim was dying in that decontamination chamber twenty minutes ago, but apparently for everyone else it’s been two weeks. And if Spock’s behavior is anything to go by, he missed a lot in that time.

“Spock, please,” he implores. “Talk to me.”

Spock’s gaze softens slightly as he studies Jim. He relaxes out of his defensive stance and sits primly on the edge of the evidently well-used chair beside Jim’s bed.

“Dr. McCoy was quite distraught when you died,” he says, like that’s some kind of revelation. Of course Bones had been upset. He’s always upset when Jim gets hurt, but he’s never been like this once Jim has recovered, never shut him out. If anything, it’s usually when he’s at his most clingy, much as he grumps and scolds at the same time.

“Yeah, I get that, but-”

“Forgive me, Jim,” Spock interrupts, his gaze solemn. “But I do not believe that you do.”

Jim’s mouth goes dry as he looks over at his first officer. Spock lets out the closest thing he ever allows himself to a sigh, looking suddenly tired.

“As I am sure you are aware,” he says. “The bond between soulmates varies in strength for various pairs. Some feel nothing at all, and must simply trust that they are with the right person. Others share a connection that extends far deeper, binding the two souls so closely together that they are all but one. From what I have observed, the connection that you share with Dr. McCoy nears the stronger end of this spectrum.”

Jim nods. It’s a fact he’s often extremely grateful for, even though there are times when he finds the lack of privacy a little stifling.

“While such bonds are perhaps more fulfilling, they pose greater risk to their participants,” Spock continues. He straightens a bit, assuming an air of professional detachment. “When you died, Dr. McCoy went into psycholytic shock.”

Jim flinches, stomach clenching.

He’s only ever seen one person go into psycholytic shock, but he knows with utter certainty that he will never forget it. He will never forget the bone-chilling cry that rent the air and drew every eye in the Academy classroom to the young cadet who had slid from her chair to collapse on the floor. He will never forget the sheer agony that twisted her face as she clutched at her chest. He will never forget the way her screams finally choked off as something in her eyes went dull and dead. There was nothing anyone could do for her, and she died later that day, her body simply giving up just hours after her soulmate was killed in a shuttle accident.

Psycholytic shock does not affect every person who loses a soulmate, but its effects can be devastating. Even when the severing of that connection doesn’t cause death, it can result in permanent insanity. It’s what Jim had been hoping so desperately to spare Bones from by shutting himself off as he was dying, but apparently he failed rather miserably. When Bones had broken through to him anyway, had appeared in the engine room looking so scared but still so beautiful, Jim had been unable to resist reaching out to him one last time. He’d been hoping to convey just how much Bones meant to him, wanting that to be one less regret that he took to his grave. Instead, he’d almost killed his soulmate.

The news only intensifies Jim’s need to see him. While he knows that Bones survived, evidently with his sanity intact, he wants to hold the proof in his arms, to be able to reassure them both that all is well. He wants to kiss away the lines of worry and exhaustion from his lover’s face. He wants Bones’ warmth to help chase away the chill of death that still lingers in his core.

“I was able to prevent him from succumbing entirely,” Spock continues. “And he recovered in time to make the discovery that would eventually lead to your revival. But his psychological state was still poor, and he pushed himself beyond reasonable limits. He would accept little help, and-”

Spock breaks off, his mouth thinning into a hard line.

“And what?” Jim demands.

“And I believe that you must have the rest of this conversation with Dr. McCoy.”

“I’d love to, Spock, but he doesn’t seem ready to talk to me.”

Jim can hear the petulance in his own voice. He’s not exactly proud of it, but he can’t help feeling that it’s at least a little justified. He’s just returned from the dead, which is huge and terrifying and something that he could really use his soulmate’s support in dealing with, and Bones could only spend two minutes with him before bolting? If his death had upset Bones that much, why isn’t he here?

*****

Leonard makes it as far as the empty room across from Jim’s before his legs give out and he slides to the floor, back pressed against the wall and body shaking uncontrollably.

Jim has been alive for two weeks now. Leonard knows this, has spent every possible second of those two weeks in Jim’s room, reminding himself. But seeing Jim’s eyes open and looking at him with that bright warmth, hearing his voice and seeing his lips curve into a familiar grin, all these things he thought he’d lost…

Jim is alive. He’s whole, in body and in mind. He’s safe. Leonard can finally believe it now, really and truly, in a way that he couldn’t before.

Jim is safe, and Leonard is more vulnerable than ever.

He realizes now that part of him, some foolish, naïve, but apparently strong part, had been hoping that Jim’s return to consciousness would somehow fix everything, would ease the constant knot in his gut and dismiss the fear and dread that chill his veins whenever he looks at his new soulmark. And for a moment, seeing Jim awake, being able to talk to him, had overwhelmed him with enough other feelings that he’d been able to ignore everything else. It had been possible to pretend that he was the Leonard of three weeks ago, faking lightness and easiness so well that he had almost believed in it.

But then Jim had gone and asked him if he was all right. A stupid question, really, and it reminded him of its answer. Leonard is a couple galaxies over from all right. And then Jim had touched his old soulmark, and it should have come alive in response but it remained cold and dead. It felt so foreign, so wrong, and Leonard had shied away from Jim, instinctively trying to protect himself from the kind of pain that he now associates with that mark. And not just the mark.

With that had come the horrifying realization: Leonard is terrified of his soulmate.

It shouldn’t be that much of a shock. He spent his first several months at the Academy scared that Jim was his soulmate, and the rest of his time there scared because Jim was his soulmate. But it’s never been like this. He was only ever frightened of the possibilities before, and now…

Leonard drops his head into his hands, twisting his fingers into his hair as he struggles in vain to even out his breathing as it starts to come in shallow gasps. He hates this, hates himself for falling apart like this when Jim needs him. But he needs Jim too, more than he ever realized, and that’s the problem. He is terrifyingly dependent on a human being who spends half his life in risky situations, whose regard for his own safety is minimal and whose noble streak is buried deep but a mile wide. This is bound to happen again, and again, until Leonard inevitably runs out of miracles, and then what?

Shit. Shit.

Leonard can’t seem to get enough of the room’s sterile air as his mounting panic squeezes his chest. He can hear his pulse roaring in his ears, can feel his tremors growing more violent as his fear breaks free of the tenuous control he’s been trying to keep over it. The psychologist in him is distantly aware of the fact that he’s having a panic attack, but the knowledge of what’s happening doesn’t make it any easier to convince himself that he’s not actually suffocating, that his vision isn’t actually going dark, that his world isn’t actually ending again.

His horror spins further and further out of his control, smothering any other, more rational thoughts. And then a fresh wave of concern crashes in, and it sucks Leonard under. The room disappears and his vision floods instead with images of Jim, locked away from Leonard as his body breaks down and the light dims in his eyes, Jim pale and dead on a medbay table, Jim stiff and frozen in a cryotube. Jim rotting in the ground or launched into a star while Leonard is left shattered and hollow and ruined.

Leonard hears the voice that calls out to him gently, but it doesn’t register, and certainly doesn’t help contain the flood of panic that he’s drowning in. And then there are cool fingers on his face and he doesn’t notice those either, but what he does notice is the wave of peace that swirls through him, buoying him up out of the desperate terror, the nightmare scenarios. It takes a long moment, but his head finally begins to clear and some of his control returns.

He blinks his eyes open to find that he’s curled up on the floor with Spock crouched over him, his expression etched with determined concentration and his fingers on Leonard’s psi points. Leonard bats his hands away automatically and struggles to sit up. Spock reaches out to help him, and he doesn’t have the energy to wave him off a second time. But as his friend settles him into a sitting position against the wall, he realizes why Spock must be there in the first place.

“Dammit,” he hisses. “He felt that, didn’t he?”

Spock eases back a bit out of Leonard’s personal space, but he doesn’t rise.

“Jim could sense your distress, yes,” he says, studying Leonard solemnly. “It upset him, and he asked me to ascertain your condition.”

Leonard has regained enough control over his end of the bond to keep his emotions to himself, but he can still tell that what Spock just said could be in the running for the biggest understatement of the century. Even as his own panic recedes, he can still feel Jim’s battering against him, and knows that it’s probably what drove him deeper into his attack. He does his best to send reassuring feelings to his partner, but considering the feelings he’s got to work with at the moment, and his new wariness of their bond, he’s skeptical about the degree of success he’s had.

“Asked you, my ass,” he grunts at Spock, grinding his palms into his eyes. “There’s no way he didn’t try to come charging in here himself, which means you either tied him to the bed, or he can’t walk.”

“We did suspect that some muscular degeneration would occur,” Spock says by way of answer.

Oh, Jim must have loved that, feeling Leonard’s terror and being completely unable to go to him. Not that he could have helped, but still.

Leonard pushes himself to his feet. He can’t stay away from Jim after this, for both their sakes. And he wants to do a more complete exam than he’d had time for before, especially if there’s been some muscle damage.

“Doctor-”

“We’ll figure it out, Spock,” Leonard says, and he really wishes he could believe it.

The look Spock gives him is skeptical at best, and Leonard swallows back a sigh.

“I fixed him,” he says, offering the Vulcan a weary half-smile. “Against all odds and most of what I believe in, I fixed him. But I’m kinda realizing that I did nothing to fix myself. And I’m…”

And he’s worried that nothing can. But he’s not ready to admit that to Spock, so he just shakes his head.

“I need to get back in there,” he insists. “Nothing’s changed, and nothing’s going to change, so I’ve just got to put on my big-boy pants and deal with it.”

The concern has not faded from Spock’s eyes, but he extends a hand to help Leonard rise. Once they’re at the doorway though, Leonard turns to him. He looks at him for a moment, and sighs.

“Thank you, Spock,” he says, with tired sincerity. “For being here through all of this. I know we don’t always…well, I wouldn’t have gotten through this without you, and I know it. But I can’t keep using you as a shield now that Jim’s awake.”

“I believe I understand,” Spock replies. “And you are welcome, Doctor, although your thanks are unnecessary. I shall continue to ‘be here’ for the foreseeable future.”

Leonard just nods, clearing his throat. Spock follows him out of the empty room, but he’s alone when he finds himself in front of Jim’s door a moment later. He braces himself, taking a deep breath and squaring his shoulders. He hates that he has to prepare himself for this, hates that the prospect of seeing Jim fills him with as much dread as it does anticipation. But he does, and it does, and the only thing for it is to just take that last step that triggers the door to slide open.

Jim is sitting up when he enters, his face pale. His expression is a dark mix of worried and frustrated, which only intensifies when he sees Leonard.

“Bones,” he says, and his tone is enough to tell Leonard just how much of his little episode across the hall leaked through their bond. “Are you-?”

“Of course not,” Leonard interrupts before Jim can even get the ridiculous question out. He strides across the room and only hesitates for a moment before putting his hand on Jim’s shoulder to keep him from trying to get up. “But neither are you, so just- just slow down, Jim.”

Jim allows himself to be pushed back, but his eyes never waver from Leonard’s face. His hands are clenched tightly in his lap.

“Are you in any pain?” Leonard asks him, grabbing his medical tricorder. Some aches are to be expected, but Jim’s knuckles are bone-white, and he has a high tolerance.

“What? No. I mean,” Jim amends as Leonard gives him a disbelieving look, “my muscles feel like someone took a meat tenderizer to them, but Spock said that’s to be expected, considering.”

That’s true, but Leonard continues his investigation with the tricorder anyway. Jim’s monitors hold a wealth of information, all of it reassuring, but he wants as much data as he can get.

“So are you just trying not to punch me, then?” he asks, nodding down at Jim’s clenched fists. “I suppose I get that. I’m sorry I…” but he doesn’t know how to finish the apology, because he’s sorry for so many things. Sorry for bailing, sorry that he’s such a mess, sorry that he’s made Jim worry about him when his focus should be on his own recovery, sorry that he couldn’t save Jim in the first place. But Jim is shaking his head before he can figure out which to say first.

“I don’t want to punch you, Bones, I want to touch you!” he says. “I want to hold you as tight as I can until I can actually believe that this is real. I want to smooth away that little worried crinkle in your forehead. I want to hold your hand until I can really breathe. But since me touching you just gave you a panic attack, I figured it might be best to keep my hands to myself. Turns out that’s a little difficult, so forgive me if I seem tense.”

Leonard freezes as a wave of hurt and frustration hits him in the gut, courtesy of their connection. He squeezes his eyes shut, throat tightening painfully.

Jim doesn’t deserve this. And Leonard needs to get his act together right the fuck now.

“Bones, I’m-” Jim begins, his voice softer, but Leonard shakes his head fiercely.

He lets out a slow breath and opens his eyes again. He sets his tricorder down, and reaches out slowly but deliberately to settle his hands over Jim’s. He’s pretty sure they’re both holding their breath, but none of the wild panic that had crippled him earlier resurfaces, and Jim’s fists loosen. He twines his fingers with Leonard’s cautiously, and breathes a soft sigh of relief when his soulmate doesn’t pull away.

When Leonard can finally bring himself to look back up at his face, Jim is staring at the new soulmark on the back of his hand, his eyes wide. He must have missed it earlier.

“Old one’s still faded,” Leonard tells him.

Because saying the words doesn’t feel like enough, he lets go of Jim’s hands and pushes up his left sleeve. They both stare at the faded mark, but Leonard can’t bear it for long. He tugs his sleeve back down.

Jim’s hand reaches up to touch his chest, and Leonard knows what he must be wondering.

“Yours is still fine,” he says, and he doesn’t want to resent the flash of relief that the news brings to Jim’s face but he can’t quite help it.

Jim bites his lip and looks at him, a bit helplessly.

“Oh, Bones,” he says softly.

They just watch each other for a moment, and Leonard knows that Jim must be seeing far too much, but he can’t figure out how to hide. There’s sadness in Jim’s eyes, but there’s understanding now too.

He reaches out as if to touch the new soulmark, and Leonard can’t help flinching back. Jim yanks his own hand back at once, and Leonard’s not sure whose hurt it is that clenches in his chest.

Jim tucks his hands very deliberately under his blankets, and looks up at him again. Leonard is afraid that he’s going to try to apologize, and he just doesn’t know how to handle that yet. But Jim must realize that he’s not ready to hear those words.

“What can I do?” he murmurs instead.

Leonard shakes his head, angry with himself for how poorly he’s handling this. He’s upsetting Jim, and that’s the last thing he wants, but he doesn’t know how to do this, doesn’t know how to open himself back up to what destroyed him. The last three weeks have changed him permanently, and he doesn’t know how to go back to being the man Jim knows and needs.

“I need you to let me take care of you, Jim,” he says eventually, because no matter what changes, that will always be a constant. That, he will always know how to do. “That’s what you can do for me. That’s all you can do.”

Jim frowns, but nods solemnly. Leonard holds out his hand, the one that doesn’t have his name printed on the back of it, and Jim takes it immediately, gripping tight. They are both searching for something in the contact. Leonard hopes that Jim finds what he’s looking for, because he sure as hell still feels lost.

He shakes himself and slips back into his role as a doctor, letting go of Jim’s hand as he arms himself with professionalism. But the unsettled feeling doesn’t go away as he begins his detailed examination. It should be a familiar pattern, one of the oldest in their relationship. Leonard has been patching Jim up since their second week at the Academy, when Jim stumbled back to their dorm at three in the morning with a busted hand and two fewer teeth than he went out with. It has always come easy to them, this order of doctor and patient, something to fall back on after rough days or tricky missions. Jim makes a nuisance of himself to prove that he’s fine and alive, and Leonard glares and lectures and fusses because he’s grateful to be able to, and they both find comfort and reassurance in the ritual.

But this, now, with a subdued Jim on his best behavior and Leonard relying on strict and utter professionalism to keep himself together, feels foreign, strange. It sets Leonard’s teeth on edge, and part of him wants to just grab Jim by the shoulders and kiss him until they both forget everything that’s happened, or shake him and start yelling. But to kiss Jim would be to lower his new shields, his meager defense against the damage his soulmate is capable of inflicting on him. And if he starts yelling now he won’t be able to restrain himself from saying something that will hurt Jim, hurt him deeply, and that is unacceptable.

So he restricts his touch to what is medically necessary, and he keeps his mouth shut when he’s not asking Jim to flex something or describe how he’s feeling, and he closes off the dark tangle of his emotions so that they will not seep through to his patient. Jim watches him unhappily but does not protest, and his quiet compliance only serves to unsettle Leonard further. The air in the room grows thick with unease and tension and things left unsaid, until it is almost hard to breathe again. There’s a whole parade of elephants in the room, and neither of them seems to have the first idea what to do about it.

At least once Leonard has checked Jim over thoroughly, twice, one of his fears eases. Jim is fine, aside from some muscle atrophy from the coma and general weakness from the transfusion.

“Your muscles are going to be pretty weak for a month or two,” he tells his patient. “You’re going to have to go through physical therapy, which won’t be much fun, but it’ll get you back to where you were before-” Leonard breaks off and clears his throat. Christ, this isn’t supposed to be the hard part. “Anyway, you’ll be here for at least another two weeks.”

He gives Jim a look that says any arguing will be completely ineffective. That look is usually met with one of either feigned innocence or mischievous challenge, but this time Jim’s expression is utterly serious as he nods in agreement. It’s what Leonard wanted, but it still feels wrong.

He finds himself backing towards the door, unable to bear the tension and pressure now that he has nothing left to do.

“Bones?”

Leonard shakes his head as Jim tries to sit up.

“It’s fine,” he lies. “I’m just- I just need to-”

He needs to get in a time machine, is what he needs, but that’s not an option, so he settles for escape. Even now though, the thought of leaving Jim, of not being able to check on him or see him or touch him, is unbearable, and Leonard winds up sitting in the hallway with his knees drawn up to his chest and his back pressed to the wall right beside Jim’s door. He fishes for his communicator, his free hand clenching into a fist as frustration and self-disgust burn his throat.

“McCoy to Spock.”

“Spock here.”

“I need you in Jim’s room.” Hearing how that must sound, Leonard quickly adds, “nothing’s wrong with him, I just-”

He just what? Just needs to forget the worst trauma of his life? Just needs to figure out how to pretend to be the same man he was three weeks ago?

“I will be there momentarily.”

Spock is as good as his word, and soon he’s striding down the hallway towards Leonard. He stops a few feet from him and studies him for a moment, brows drawing together slightly.

“He shouldn’t have to be alone right now,” Leonard says, waving a hand at the wall behind him. His voice sounds strained to his own ears. “But I can’t- we’re not helping each other like this. Could you-?”

He doesn’t know how to get the rest of the request out past the bitterness that chokes him. He shouldn’t have to ask someone else to do what has always been his job. And Spock doesn’t make him. He just nods and takes a step towards the door. But then he pauses, looks back down at Leonard.

“While you were needed at Jim’s side, and recovering yourself, it was possible to shield you from Starfleet inquiry,” he says. “But now that he is awake and out of danger, you will be required to attend a debriefing.”

Leonard just nods tiredly. Truthfully he hasn’t given much thought to Starfleet in the past few weeks, and he realizes now that this was a luxury won for him by Spock and the crew. It would be damned ungrateful to whine about having to go now, to face the music that he’s always known will be waiting for him.

Spock looks like he wants to say something else, but then he just turns back towards the door.

“Spock.”

The Vulcan pauses again and looks inquiringly at Leonard.

“Don’t tell him I’m…” Leonard gestures vaguely at himself, huddled like a coward outside his soulmate’s hospital room. “Please.”

Spock doesn’t look too pleased by the request, but after a moment he nods.

Once the door to Jim’s room hisses closed behind the first officer, Leonard lets his head fall back against the wall with a dull thunk.

*****

The moment Spock walks into his room, Jim starts to pump him for information. He quickly learns that asking about Bones will only get him a practical demonstration of how good Vulcans are at stonewalling, so he switches tacks and inquires about the rest of his crew, and the general situation.

Spock gives him the report in a calm, measured tone, but it doesn’t do much to reduce the horror of what he has to say: 217 members of Jim’s crew are dead, killed when the Enterprise was attacked or when its artificial gravity systems failed. And there were over ten thousand more casualties on the surface, Starfleet and civilians alike, crushed by the crashing Vengeance. Lives that perhaps Jim was not responsible for, but that he still should have found a way to save. And although Spock explains quite logically that there was little he could have done differently, knowing what he did at the time, it doesn’t do much to ease the sharp guilt gnawing at Jim’s stomach, or make his victory feel any less hollow.

So although Jim appreciates his friend’s company, he sends Spock away once he’s gotten the full story of the last three weeks. His first officer is still able-bodied and one of the most capable individuals Jim has ever met, and he’s needed out there, more than he is in the hospital keeping one person company.

But when he is alone, Jim begins to regret the decision. The stifling silence of his room leaves him with nothing to think about but his worry for Bones, who seems to be broken in ways he won’t let Jim understand, and the devastating reality of the aftermath of Marcus’ betrayal and Khan’s attack. Guilt and grief and frustration over his own weakness roil inside him with no outlet.

But apparently dying takes a lot out of a guy, and Jim is only awake for a couple of hours before he is weighed down by the most powerful exhaustion he has ever felt in his life. It doesn’t help that he woke up in the afternoon, so the natural light that was streaming through the windows has faded, leaving only the muted glow of his monitors and the harsh, sterile glare of the room lights. Jim wants nothing more than to command those lights off and sleep until his body no longer feels like a weak and burdensome prison, but the moment the lights go out, the darkness becomes a hiding place for a circus of horrors. It yanks him back to that decontamination chamber, to the pain of his body breaking down cell by cell, to feeling himself come untethered.

And trying to actually sleep? That’s so much worse, because it’s setting himself adrift, letting himself go, when the last time he did that he had been absolutely certain that he would never be coming back. Death was cold and all-consuming, and it can’t have appreciated being cheated. What’s to stop it from coming back for him when he lets his guard down? What’s to ensure he’ll wake up again after he succumbs to the darkness?

So though his eyes burn with weariness, he keeps them open, fixed on the screen that displays the beat of his heart. He watches the steady rhythm of his pulse, but he feels oddly detached from it, even though he can hear its faint echo in his ear. His heart stopped, and it feels like someone else’s has restarted, like each beat is borrowed. Jim presses a hand over it, but he knows that what he’s really seeking is the mark on his skin.

He’s not sure whether or not he meant to reach out to Bones, but after a few minutes his door hisses open. The man on the other side of it looks like a ghost, face shadowed and pale, still dressed in his medical whites. Jim watches Bones without saying a word, biting down hard on the pleas that want to tumble from him. He needs Bones so badly he aches with it, but he has already asked too much, already taken too much.

Bones doesn’t say anything either, but he crosses the room in a few strides, and then he is climbing into Jim’s bed, ignoring the beeping of the monitors as they adjust for a second body. Bones keeps the hand with his new soulmark tucked close against his body, but he drapes the other arm across Jim’s chest, palm over his heart.

The sigh of relief that escapes Jim is almost a sob, but neither of them comment on it. Jim just turns his head to press his face to Bones’ neck, taking shelter in his solid, living presence, his fears easing away to nothing. Death cannot touch him here, in the arms of his soulmate, his partner and protector, the man who picked a fight with the grim reaper for him and won.

They are both still broken, and Jim knows it. Bones is still hurting and withdrawn, and Jim is royally fucked in the head and weighed down by a damaged body, and they’re both still trying to figure out how to be around one another now that what they once had has been shattered like a dream. But they’re both still there, and Jim will take it, and be grateful for every damn second of it.

And this time when he commands the lights out, the darkness doesn’t threaten to engulf him.

*****

It takes Jim a moment to remember why he’s relieved to be waking up. But then his eyes shoot open and his heart starts to pound, as if to prove that it still can. He forces himself to take a deep breath and relax.

He’s alone in his room, and there is no warm spot beside him on the bed to suggest that Bones has only just left. It’s disappointing, but Jim can hardly claim to be surprised. He should probably just count himself lucky that Bones came back to him in the first place.

Jim scrubs his hands over his face as he remembers how shitty the situation is.

He jumps violently enough to jar every single one of his aching muscles when a trilling sound comes from somewhere behind his ear. He cranes his neck around, blinking when his gaze lands on a glass tank containing a large ball of grey fur.

“Uh,” he says intelligently. “Is the animal hospital so crowded that they’re double booking rooms here?”

The tribble doesn’t have an answer for him, but Jim notices a little piece of paper stuck to its tank. He reaches out to snag it, smiling when he sees the familiar handwriting.

Had to go to a meeting, it says. You’re going to be bombarded by your crew later, but Laz will keep you company in the meantime. DO NOT FEED IT ANYTHING. Scratch its belly - it likes that.

Jim assumes that Laz is the tribble’s name, but he hasn’t got the first clue about where its belly is. But that’s not really what he takes from the note.

He closes his eyes and opens himself up, sending a quick burst of affection Bones’ way to let his soulmate know that he’s awake and all right. It takes a moment and is tinged with hesitation, but there is an answering flash of warmth as Bones acknowledges him, and Jim lets out a little huff of relief. They haven’t gone back to their easy, automatic connection, but Bones doesn’t seem to be shutting him out as completely as he did the day before.

“I’ll take it,” he tells Laz the tribble.

He reaches over and scoops the little creature out of its tank. Its warm weight in his arms is surprisingly soothing, and he finds himself hanging on tight. He’s figured out by now where this particular tribble must have come from, and Jim can’t help feeling a bit of kinship with it.

Fortunately, Chekov and Sulu arrive before he can get too introspective. They both beam from ear to ear at the sight of him, and their attitudes are contagious. More and more of his crew trickles in as the day wears on. Even the ones he’s barely spoken to stop by with a few kind words and encouraging smiles, and the ones he knows a bit better stick around longer. They understand that he doesn’t have much energy, and they don’t ask anything of him, just provide an atmosphere that leaves no room for memories of death.

He’s reminded that day of why he did what he did. These people are worth every second of the agony he went through in that radiation chamber, worth the darkness that haunts him when he closes his eyes. He just wishes the sacrifice could have been his alone.

But they all have lives of their own, and eventually they all trickle back out, and he’s alone again. Well, except for Laz. He thinks he must have finally found the damn thing’s belly, because there’s a certain spot that makes it wiggle and squeal with ecstasy.

“Looks like you’ve got yourself a new best friend.”

Jim jumps and looks up, and Bones is standing in the doorway, looking tired and just the slightest bit wary. Jim gives him a cautious smile.

“I’m just glad to see the old one,” he says.

Bones doesn’t smile back, but his expression softens a little and he finally comes the rest of the way into the room.

“How are you feeling?” he asks.

It pains Jim to see Bones slipping back into doctor mode, but he knows better than to lie.

“Tired and achy,” he admits. “But alive.”

He doesn’t think he imagines Bones’ slight flinch, and he bites back a sigh. He doesn’t know how to be more careful than he’s already trying to be, but it still doesn’t seem to be enough. So he says nothing at all while Bones runs the battery of tests that Jim is starting to fear is going to be the new normal.

“You can start physical therapy the day after tomorrow,” Bones decides eventually, setting aside his equipment. “But I want you to have another day of rest first.”

“I can’t rest unless you’re here,” Jim blurts quickly, because he’s afraid this means that Bones is getting ready to leave again.

He holds his breath while Bones looks at him for a moment.

“Then here is where I’ll be,” he says.

And he is. In body, at least. Maybe in mind too. But his spirit, he keeps to himself.

Jim’s not even sure he realizes he’s doing it. He’s always around, always hovering and keeping a watchful eye on Jim, jumping at every blip on his monitors and hardly letting go of that damn tricorder. He’s there at night to hold Jim and guard against the nightmares that lurk at the edge of consciousness. But he’s never really there, never engaged, never open to Jim in that natural, automatic way that they’d once had. Silences that were once relaxed and comfortable have become tense, suffocating things, but every word that breaks them threatens to upset the uneasy balance between them. It reminds Jim of the weeks of awkwardness that followed his first birthday at the Academy, following Bones’ realization that his best friend was his soulmate. Back then, Bones had been scared of his feelings, about what being Jim’s soulmate would mean for them both.

Jim has the sinking fear that it’s the same problem this time, but on an even larger scale. And he has no idea how to fix it. He tries to be a good patient, following all of Bones’ orders to the letter even when he thinks they’re overly cautious. He leaves himself open to Bones without pushing for reciprocation, and touches him only when touched first, which is almost never, and carefully avoids the soulmark on Bones’ hand. He’s trying, but it doesn’t seem to help, doesn’t make Bones less skittish and wary or more willing to let Jim in.

It aches, and it’s frustrating, but Jim does his best to keep those feelings in check. He knows that Bones is hurt too, and he owes him all the patience in the universe for what he’s already done. And Jim can be patient, if it’s just a waiting game. But the fear that quickly grows to replace his fading dread of death is that there’s nothing to wait for. That now that Bones knows what it’s like to lose his soulmate, he’ll cut and run rather than risk going through that again. And there will be nothing Jim can do to stop him.

*****

It takes Jim a while to see it, but once he does, he thinks he should have figured it out earlier. In his defense, he’s not used to having to rely solely on visual clues.

Bones is angry. He’s obviously trying hard not to be, and he does a pretty good job of hiding it behind the professional mask that has become some kind of second skin for him, but it’s there. It’s in the set of his shoulders, the sharp lines of his mouth, the way he seems to catch himself sometimes before saying something to Jim.

Bones has never been one to bottle things up. He doesn’t know how to, usually. When he’s angry, the whole world knows it, but then the storm passes and he’s fine. But this time he’s forcing himself to hold back, to be the constant support he thinks Jim needs. It’s got to be eating at him, keeping his wounds raw and unable to heal.

It’s high time to uncork that bottle. Jim wants his grumpy bastard back.

His plan is a simple one. The most complicated part is getting one of his more frequent visitors on board with it and convincing the nurses to turn a blind eye, which isn’t that hard to do since he’s sort of Starfleet’s golden boy. And then it’s a matter of waiting, which doesn’t take long at all since Bones hardly ever leaves his side for more than ten minutes at a time.

Bones has his nose in a padd when he walks in. He’s been carrying them around a lot lately, and Jim can’t help but wonder if they’re some kind of defense mechanism so he has an excuse not to talk. But he stops dead after taking a single step through the door, and he sniffs suspiciously. Then he whips his head up to stare at Jim. Jim stares back at him, unconcerned.

“What the hell is that?” Bones asks, his voice too even, but a muscle jumping promisingly in his neck.

“A plate of the best non-replicated, full-fat bacon cheese fries this city has to offer,” Jim tells him cheerfully, popping another dripping fry into his mouth.

Bones’ jaw clenches, and Jim would swear he can hear the sound of his teeth grinding together. He suppresses a grin.

“And where the hell did you get them?”

“As if I would reveal my source. You’d cut me off.” Actually, Jim is more worried that he’d scare poor Chekov into incontinence, but he doesn’t say that.

“You’re damn right.” Bones strides towards him and snatches the plate from his lap.

“Oh, come on, Bones,” Jim wheedles, wiping his greasy fingers on Bones’ uniform before he can back out of reach. “What’s the harm?”

“The harm is that even if you were ready to tolerate this kind of food, your arteries deserve better than to be choked to death by a pound of saturated fat!” Bones snaps, and he sounds more like his usual self than he has since Jim woke up.

“If I live long enough to die from a clogged artery, I think I’ll have done pretty well,” Jim dismisses. “Besides, if you’d actually let me out of this bed, maybe I’d be able to get a little more exercise.”

Aaaaand they’re in business. The storm rolls in, Bones’ eyes flashing dark and dangerous. He throws the plate of fries into the recycler so hard it almost bounces right back out again, and advances on Jim.

“Do you think this is a joke?” he hisses, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

“I think the only joke here is the idea that my body is really what needs fixing,” Jim replies, more serious now that he’s got Bones sufficiently riled up.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You know what it means!” Jim huffs, finally letting some of his frustration seep through. “It means that you’re sulking like a kid, but you’re not the only one who’s hurting, okay?”

Bones makes a disbelieving, choked sound.

“I’m trying to take care of-”

“I don’t mean physically!” Jim snaps. “Trust me, you’ve got that covered. But you’re punishing me for something that I had to do, and I’m sick of it, you hypocritical bastard.”

“Hypocritical?”

“Yes! I died, all right, I get that, and I am so fucking sorry for what I put you through, Bones. I truly am. But if I hadn’t done what I did, every single person on my ship would have died. Just like you thought Carol Marcus was going to die when you asked me to kill you.”

Bones gapes at him.

“You’re talking about the damn torpedo?” he demands. “That was nothing like-”

“I was stuck there on the bridge listening to you counting down the seconds until you were blown to bits, and you wanted me to take away your only chance at survival, wanted me to be the one to sentence you to death. I was so fucking scared I could barely stand, so don’t tell me our situations were nothing alike. But when I got you back, I just wanted to hold you tighter, not push you away. How the hell is what I did so much more unforgivable than what you tried to do to me?”

“Because you succeeded!”

The volume of Bones’ voice startles them both. They stare at each other for a moment, but then something in Bones’ eyes shifts, and Jim can’t help but wonder if maybe this little plan of his is working a little too well.

“Maybe you’re right, and I am a hypocrite, but the difference is that you actually goddamn died,” Bones growls. “And you really think that talking about it is going to help, Jim? What exactly do you think I should say to make this better? That you dying was so fucking painful I thought it was going to kill me? That right up until I realized there was a chance to save you I was trying to figure out how I was going to slip away from everyone long enough to kill myself? That instead of taking care of your crew I locked myself away in a lab and violated the oaths that I’ve built my life around, and when a board of review voted not to revoke my medical license afterwards I was actually disappointed because I don’t trust myself anymore?”

He might as well have thrown a bucket of ice water on Jim.

“Or would you rather hear about how I overdosed on stims and almost died, had to spend four days in a bed right next to yours?”

Jim’s gut is roiling now, the cheese fries threatening to come back up.

“You what-?”

“Oh, maybe you want to know that during that time, some part of me wished I had died, so that you could come back just to find out how it feels, so you could understand what you put me through and you would be the one with a black hole in his chest and a lifetime of living hell to look forward to. Or should I talk about how I’m afraid all the goddamn time now, how when I hold you at night and I watch your eyes close it takes everything I have not to shake you awake again because it’s like you’re dying all over again? Do you want to hear that whenever I look at the mark on my hand I feel like I’m strapped to a time bomb and it’s only a matter of time before this one fades too and I get blown apart again but have to find some way to keep on living because it would disappoint you if I didn’t?”

Each shouted word is a fresh shard of ice directly to the heart, and Jim’s entire body feels numb now, his mouth hanging open slightly. Bones’ face is white, but his dark eyes burn as they hold Jim’s.

“Or maybe it would help to say that looking at you feels like a kick to the gut, every time, because I can see your disappointment, and your hurt, and your need, and I know full well that I’m not enough, that I’m a selfish bastard and I’m failing you again, and I still can’t be what you need and it kills me-”

He breaks off with a pained noise, finally looking away. But Jim still can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t begin to process everything that was just dumped on him.

“Bones,” he gasps. “Bones, I…”

He what? He’s sorry? What is sorry, in the face of all he’s put Bones through? He’d thought that getting Bones to talk about this would help them both, but what the hell is he supposed to say to this?

“Fuck you,” Bones says, quieter now but still not looking back at Jim. “Is that what you want me to say? Fine. Fuck you for doing this to me, and for doing it for such a good reason that I can’t be angry about it without feeling even shittier. And fuck you for making me say all this to you instead of letting me protect you, from just this one thing-”

He chokes off again and stands stock still for a moment, tense enough to shatter at the slightest touch. And then, without another word or glance at Jim, he strides from the room.

Jim can only stare after him, stunned. A beat of ringing silence passes. Then another. Then he’s getting up on shaky legs and stumbling to the fresher, where he throws up until his stomach is as empty as the rest of him.

*****

The sickening, furious energy buzzing through Leonard’s system carries him out of the hospital and into the attached garden. Everything there is far too green and beautiful to fit his black mood, but he doesn’t have many options. He’s in a city full of people, and he obviously can’t be trusted around other sentient beings right now.

The memory of Jim’s stricken, pale face flashes through his mind, and he jerks to a halt beneath a palm tree, wrapping his arms around his middle. He thumps his head against the rough bark of the tree a few times.

He knows, he knows, that Jim was provoking him on purpose, that he wanted Leonard to start yelling. But he also knows that Jim had no idea just what he was really opening himself up to, and he should never have had to know. He didn’t deserve most of that. And it took so damn little to set Leonard off, despite his fierce determination to keep it together.

But while Jim has been steadily improving, Leonard has made no such progress. He has to carry around a padd that is linked to Jim’s monitors in order to simply be able to leave his soulmate’s room for more than ten minutes. His gut still clenches with dread every time he looks at his hand. And he can’t help but hover, even though he knows full well that Jim is completely stable and well on his way to being perfectly fine, and it doesn’t do either of them any good because he still can’t bring himself to lower the shields that he’s been constructing around himself since Jim woke up.

He understands why Jim provoked him. He hates the uncomfortable tension that blankets their every interaction too. He misses the way things used to be between them, and he knows that he’s the one keeping them from going back. But he can’t figure out how to help it, and he can’t fault Jim for trying his way, even if all it seems to have done is make things worse.

Leonard stays in the garden for a long time, thinking. Hiding too, but he’s a little less willing to admit that. He sits in the shade and studies Jim’s vitals, watching them spike as the time for his PT session rolls around. He can tell that Jim is pushing himself hard today, and he can’t say he’s surprised. He’s a little more surprised when the readings indicate that Jim has fallen asleep after his session, but it must have taken a lot out of him and he seems to have less trouble sleeping alone when there’s still daylight.

Eventually, Leonard pockets the padd and gets up, body protesting. He hasn’t come to any miraculous conclusions, but he does know that staying away isn’t an option. He walks slowly back into the hospital and through the halls, looking around more carefully. He hasn’t spent much time anywhere besides Jim’s hall recently, but he can tell that much of the chaos from Khan’s attack has died down. People are starting to heal, to recover. Maybe they’ve got the right idea.

“Excuse me, Doctor.”

Leonard stops and turns to see a woman standing before him. She looks to be in her late fifties or early sixties, and she wears her age gracefully. Her blond hair is streaked heavily with silver, and her blue-grey eyes are bright and sharp. There’s something familiar about her, maybe in the way she holds herself, in the straight spine and commanding presence that she maintains despite the sadness and worry that are written on her features.

“Can I help you?” Leonard asks her.

“I was hoping you could help me find my son. He’s a patient here.”

And suddenly Leonard knows he doesn’t have to ask for a name. He understands why this woman seems so familiar, even though he has never met her before.

“Commander Kirk.”

She looks a little surprised, but nods.

“Are you Jim’s doctor?” she asks.

“I…I am, yeah,” Leonard says, deciding to leave out everything else he is to Jim. He studies Winona Kirk for a long moment.

Jim rarely talks about his family. Leonard knows that his brother George left for good when Jim was just a kid, but that his mother had left him by degrees. She’d wanted a career in the stars, and she’d left her children behind to get it. Jim has never seemed to begrudge her that, but Leonard has always had a harder time being forgiving. From what he’s heard of Jim’s childhood, it would have been a good deal better if his mother had been there for more of it.

“He’s been here for a month,” he says.

From the way Winona’s expression cools, he knows she heard the unspoken accusation.

“Not that it’s your business,” she replies, “but I was millions of light years away when Jim got hurt. It took some time for the news to get to us, and even longer for me to get back. So if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate not having to wait any longer to see my son.”

The fire in her eyes is so like Jim’s, and Leonard understands that whatever else Winona might be, she truly cares about her son. And who is he to judge a parent for being absent? He hasn’t seen his own little girl in months. And he knows that if it were Joanna who was hurt, he’d be about ten seconds from going postal on the doctor keeping him from her.

“His room is this way,” he says, nodding his head and turning back down the hallway. “He just got out of physical therapy, so he’s asleep, but you can sit with him until he wakes up if you’d like. I’m Dr. McCoy,” he adds over his shoulder as she follows him.

He lets Winona into Jim’s room, and they both just look at him for a moment. It might just be residual guilt over his outburst, but Leonard can’t help thinking that Jim looks more tired than usual, with an unhappy frown on his lips and lines of worry between his eyes even as he sleeps. But then he returns his focus to Winona. She bites her lip and her eyes begin to shine with unshed tears as she walks softly to Jim’s bedside, cups his face in the gentlest of touches.

“Oh Jimmy,” she sighs, and her tone strikes a chord in Leonard. Here is someone who knows what it’s like to love Jim Kirk, who knows all of the pain that it can bring but is helpless against it.

After a long moment of watching Jim, Winona glances at Leonard, who has been hovering on the other side of the biobed.

“Is he going to be all right?” she asks in a whisper.

Leonard nods his head towards the door, and she follows him out into the hallway.

“He’s going to be fine,” he tells her. “He’s going to have a little less energy than usual for a few weeks, but he’ll make a full recovery. He’s already doing a lot better. It’s hard to keep that man down.”

Winona smiles a little at that, but it’s a fragile thing. Leonard can relate to that.

“No one could tell me exactly what happened,” she says. “The initial reports just said that he was seriously injured, but I heard…I heard he died.”

Leonard wonders how much he should tell her. The truth is a painful thing, but lying to her won’t do her any favors.

“He did,” he says, and the words bring up a shadow of the remembered horror, the agonizing emptiness. He has to swallow hard before continuing. “He crawled into the ship’s warp core to fix it, so that the Enterprise wouldn’t be destroyed. He was heavily irradiated. Fatally so. It’s a goddamn miracle that we got him back, and it wasn’t one any of us knew was possible at the time.”

“He sacrificed himself for his crew,” Winona whispers, and her eyes are sad, haunted. “Oh, Jim. Of course he did.”

Leonard realizes, abruptly, what this must be like for her. Her soulmate died protecting her and her son, the son who she’s now hearing made the same agonizing sacrifice as his father. As someone who now knows what losing a soulmate feels like, Leonard finds he has a whole lot more empathy for this woman than he originally thought.

“I’m going to go grab a cup of coffee,” he tells her. “If you want to join me, I’ll keep you company until Jim wakes up.”

Winona nods, and she follows Leonard to one of the hospital’s lounges, the one with coffee that is actually potable. By the time they’ve both fixed their cups the way they like, she seems to have pulled herself together.

“So how long have you known Jim?” she asks when she and Leonard sit at one of the small tables.

“A little over four years now. We met on the shuttle that took us both to the Academy.”

“You must know him better than I do.” She states it like a fact, not an apology, but there is a trace of wistful sadness in her eyes.

“I like to think I know him pretty well.” Leonard isn’t sure why he still hasn’t told her that he’s Jim’s soulmate. But it doesn’t feel right to just leave it at that. “He’s my best friend.”

“Then you can tell me…how has he been, Doctor? Before all of this, I mean. We’ve exchanged a few messages, but I don’t think he would have told me if something was wrong. And I’ve seen him in the news, but that also could never really tell me how he’s doing. Has he been happy?”

“Well, he’s had his challenges, like any captain faces, but…yes. Yes, he’s been happy.” Until recently, anyway. Leonard has to suppress a wince as he remembers Jim’s horrified expression a few hours ago.

Winona’s smile is a little melancholy, but genuine.

“Then I suppose I can’t say anything,” she sighs. But she bites her lip, and Leonard is reminded forcefully of her son, who is so used to saying anything he wants that it’s painfully obvious when he’s holding back.

“I think you can, if you want,” he tells her, and she gives him a grateful look.

“It’s just…do you get the sense that he knows he’s his own person?” When Leonard looks at her questioningly, she frowns and elaborates. “I know that Jim always felt responsible for his father. I don’t think he blamed himself for what happened, but it was like…like survivor’s guilt. Like because he survived and George didn’t, he was somehow responsible for his life too. When he was younger, he tried to handle that by pushing himself, being the bright, smart boy that everyone wanted him to be. But as he got older, I think that legacy stopped being a motivator and turned into a ball and chain. It was like he didn’t think he could ever be good enough, so why even try? Especially after that girl-”

She purses her lips and breaks off, but Leonard knows that she’s talking about Ruth, the girl that Jim had thought was his soulmate. Winona just shakes her head and goes on.

“I think he always thought that I couldn’t separate him from his father when I looked at him,” she says, and there’s true regret in her expression for the first time. “And maybe…maybe at times that was true. He’s just so much like his father in a lot of ways, more than his brother ever was. But most of the time I just saw my son, my beautiful, brave, bright boy, and he broke my heart all on his own. It was like he didn’t think that he could be a child around me, and he always pushed himself so hard…I thought maybe with me gone, he might not put so much pressure on himself. But instead I think it just helped him give up on himself.”

Winona sighs and wraps her hands tightly around her mug, drawing warmth from it. She gives Leonard a slightly rueful look.

“His whole life he’s been defined by his father in one way or another, and that’s not what George would have wanted for him,” she continues. “So I guess what I’m asking you is, has he found himself? Or is he still chasing ghosts?”

Leonard just watches Winona Kirk for a long moment, processing this new insight and considering his response to it.

“I think…I think he’ll never quite be able to set aside that legacy completely,” he finally says. “But I think he’s made peace with it, as much as he can. I think he’s accepted the role that it’s played in shaping his life, but he’s living for himself now. He’s found a place where he feels like he really belongs, and it’s not just because of who his father was. That boy was just made for the stars.”

Leonard hears the wistful tone that creeps into his voice on those last words. It’s true. Jim belongs in the stars, he always has. But where does Leonard belong?

Both he and Winona are quiet for a long moment, each lost in their own thoughts. But then they both shake themselves back to the present, and by mutual unspoken agreement, move on to lighter topics. They swap a few of their more cheerful stories about Jim, but they also cover their own lives. Winona is the first officer of one of Starfleet’s older ships, and she has a wealth of stories to share. She has a sharp sense of humor and a warmth about her that is remarkably soothing. Talking to her is easy and natural, the way it used to be with Jim, and Leonard finds himself feeling better than he has in weeks as he sits with her. But when she’s halfway through a story involving a diplomatic mission and some serious cultural barriers, he starts to feel off again.

Jim has been hesitant to reach out to him through their bond since he woke up, leaving himself open but always letting Leonard make the first move, which he rarely has. But his control slips when he sleeps, and more seeps through. Like the growing horror and desperate fear that are chilling Leonard now.

“Excuse me,” he tells Winona, standing abruptly and turning to stride out of the lounge.

“Is something wrong?” she asks, following.

“No, nothing medical, just-” Leonard picks up his pace as another wave of panic crashes over him. “Wait here,” he tells Winona when they reach the door to Jim’s room.

He doesn’t bother to see if she complies as he rushes in. Jim is tangled up in his blankets, and the raw anguish on his face punches the breath out of Leonard’s lungs.

It’s sheer instinct to reach out for Jim, not just with his hands but with his heart as well, touching their neglected bond. He broadcasts the strongest feeling of security he can manage as he grabs Jim by the shoulders.

“Bones.” The name comes as a pained whimper, and Leonard thinks for a moment that Jim has woken, but his eyes are still screwed shut, and something glistens at their corners in the dim light of the room.

“Jim, hey,” Leonard says, hands moving from Jim’s shoulders to his face. “I’m right here, darlin’, it’s all right. Jim.”

He strokes a hand through Jim’s hair and focuses on trying to draw him out of the nightmare. It’s hard to give his soulmate a sense of peace when he hasn’t felt it himself in over a month, but some combination of his efforts quickly gets the job done. Jim heaves in a ragged gasp and his eyes snap open, searching out his soulmate immediately. He tugs his hands free of the blankets and grabs Leonard’s forearms, gripping tightly as if to make sure he’s solid.

“You’re all right,” Leonard tells him.

“I know,” Jim says, breathless.

He’s still staring at Leonard, like he’s drinking in the sight of him. His wide eyes are haunted, and Leonard realizes that it wasn’t Jim’s own death that was plaguing this particular nightmare. Guilt prickles through him.

“I’m here,” he promises, using his thumbs to wipe away the traces of tears that cling to the corners of Jim’s wide eyes.

After another moment of staring, Jim takes a deep breath and nods, settling back against his pillows. He doesn’t let go of Leonard’s arms, and Leonard doesn’t try to pull away.

“Jim, about what I said-”

Jim shakes his head before he can get out an apology.

“You needed to say it, and I needed to hear it,” he says.

While that’s true, Leonard still doesn’t know where they go from here. He glances toward the doorway. Winona did as he asked and is still outside, but she’s watching them both with concerned eyes. Leonard doubts that Jim would want his mother to see him like this, but if Winona is as she seems, then she might be just what he needs.

“You have a visitor,” he tells Jim. “And I’ll send her away if you say the word, but I think it might do you both good to see her.”

“Who is it?”

“Your mother.”

Jim’s grip on Leonard tightens, and a surge of emotion pulses through them both. It’s mostly surprise though, not fear or dismay or anger or anything else that would have had Leonard closing the door firmly in the elder Kirk’s face. And when he catches the hint of relief and longing, he nods and disengages himself from Jim. He turns to the door and waves in Winona.

He steps back a little but doesn’t leave Jim’s bedside as she approaches. She stops a few paces from the foot of the bed, and mother and son stare at each other for a long moment. Leonard can feel Jim’s nervousness, but it’s tempered by something almost like joy.

“Hey, Mom,” Jim says quietly, giving her a fragile but genuine smile.

Winona is at his side in an instant, pulling her son into her arms. Jim clings to her with an exhausted kind of desperation, and Leonard knows that he and his protectiveness are not needed at the moment. He ducks out quietly.

*****

Jim hadn’t realized how desperately he’d been missing his mother until he’s wrapped in her arms.

The two of them haven’t had the easiest of relationships. He’d had more brains and attitude as a child than either of them knew what to do with, and she’d been coping with a grief too big for one planet. Jim had always struggled to separate one parent from the ghost of the other, and they both suffered for it. He hadn’t been ready to accept her for who she was and she hadn’t been ready to stay grounded. And for a while, he’d resented that.

But she’d always reached out to him when she could, and when Jim reclaimed his life and joined Starfleet, he’d finally started reaching back. It wasn’t much, just a few vids exchanged here and there, and they never really went into anything substantial, but it was enough to feel connected. And now she’s here, and she’s the one person Jim doesn’t have to pretend around right now, the one person he doesn’t have to be strong for. He doesn’t have to be a captain or a soulmate or a hero, or anything other than a son who could really use his mother.

They hold onto each other for a long time, and maybe a few tears of exhausted relief escape Jim, but those are allowed now too. But he doesn’t break down, because he just wants to appreciate this, the uncomplicated feeling of safety and comfort and relief. And when he finally pulls away from her, he feels better than he has since before he died.

“Thanks for coming,” he says, giving her a smile that feels small and tired but so very real.

His mother’s eyes are a little too bright, but she returns the smile and sits on the edge of his bed.

“You couldn’t keep me away for anything,” she tells him. She puts a hand on his arm. “How are you, Jimmy?”

“I’ve been better,” Jim admits. “I guess…I guess I’m just kind of still getting used to being alive. Trying to figure out where to go from here.”

Trying to figure out how to start fixing things when so much is broken.

“You’ll find your way,” his mother says, gentle but confident. “And it’s okay if that takes you a while. I know you’ve never been one for taking things slow, but sometimes it’s the best way.”

If taking things slow means being weak and helpless longer, Jim’s going to have to respectfully disagree.

“Besides,” Winona goes on. “If I had a doctor that hot, I’d want to stay in the hospital as long as I could.”

Jim chokes on a surprised laugh, glancing towards the door that Bones had exited through.

“He is something to look at,” he agrees.

Of course, Bones is also the stressor behind at least sixty percent of his current emotional state, so there’s that.

“I do have to ask though: did he actually throw up on you?”

Jim blinks, then blinks again. He stares at his mother, his consternation only growing when he realizes that she’s referring to his soulmark, and the person who goes with it.

While Jim has mentioned Bones a few times in his vids, never has it been in the context of soulmates. At first that had been because what he and Bones were to each other was so confused and complicated, and not something Jim had any interest in trying to outline in a message to his mother. And once they’d finally worked things out, it hadn’t felt like the kind of thing to just share over something as impersonal as a recording that had to be bounced across half a galaxy.

“He told you?” he asks skeptically.

Winona rolls her eyes and shakes her head.

“Give me a little credit, kid,” she says. “I do have eyes. You’re the center of that man’s entire world, and he doesn’t even have to be in the same room with you to show it. Now I’m sure he’s a fine doctor, but even the best physicians don’t usually bolt out of a room like it’s on fire so that they can help their patients out of nightmares. He’s also got that nickname you gave him printed on the back of his hand. He gets this look when he talks about you. And the way you watch him…”

Some of the lightness seeps out of Winona’s expression. She sighs.

“He’ll come around,” she says.

Jim doesn’t know how the hell she’s managed to figure out in the span of about five minutes that this situation with Bones is eating at him so much, but he doesn’t question her methods. He just needs her conclusions.

“I’m not sure he will,” he says quietly, and admitting it aloud hurts more than he would have expected. He meets his mother’s understanding gaze. “He’s shutting me out. He’s angry and scared and I get all of that, I do, but he won’t let me try to help him through it. I’m worried- I’m worried that he’ll-”

Jim is more than just worried - he’s absolutely fucking terrified that Bones will just give up on him, will decide that loving someone as risky and unreliable as him isn’t worth it. He can’t bring himself to say as much, but he can tell that his mother understands. She sighs and strokes a gentle hand through his hair.

“Can I tell you something, Jim?” she asks. Jim frowns, worried at her tone.

“Of course, Mom.”

Winona bites her lip and brings her hand down to rest gently over the soulmark on Jim’s chest. Normally Jim can’t stand anyone but Bones touching it, even through the fabric of a shirt, but with his mother he doesn’t mind. She was the one to explain to him what it was, when he was just a kid, the one to tell him that someday someone very special would say those words to him and that his life would never be the same.

“I knew that Ruth girl wasn’t your soulmate.”

Jim blinks, surprised by the unexpected opener, and even more surprised by what his mom is actually saying.

“You did?”

Winona lets out another sigh, and nods.

“By the time I met her, the two of you had been together for what, three months?” she asks.

“Four.”

“Four months. When you’re with the one, four months is more than enough time to know. You couldn’t have realized that, because you didn’t know what you were looking for, but I did. And as soon as I saw you with Ruth I could tell she wasn’t what you thought, because you were the same.”

Jim gives his mother a questioning look, and she smiles a little.

“Meeting your soulmate changes you,” she tells him. “But not in the way some people think. It doesn’t change who you are, it makes it easier to be your true self. It brings out the best in you, the most honest. But the most important thing, and the hardest to really see and describe, is that it gives you a sense of…of peace, I guess. Happiness too, but that’s secondary, that comes and goes. But really finding your soulmate just settles you, anchors you. Ruth made you happy, but she didn’t do any of those other things. And I knew.”

Silence falls for a moment as Jim processes that.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

The tears that form in Winona’s eyes unsettle Jim more than anything else in this conversation has, and he sits up, reaching for her hands.

“Mom?”

She shakes her head, closing her eyes.

“I’m sorry, Jim,” she says, and she squeezes his hands. “I should have said something. I should have…well, I should’ve done a lot of things. But even though Ruth wasn’t your soulmate, you were happy when you were with her. I didn’t feel like it was my place to try to interfere with that. And…oh Jim, I was worried about you. I was worried that your real soulmate wouldn’t be good enough for you, wouldn’t mean a good life for you. I was worried that you would end up getting hurt, one way or another. And just because people have a soulmate doesn’t mean they can’t be romantically happy with someone else. I thought that maybe if things worked out with you two, you’d never have to face any of that.”

“And when she left?” Jim asks.

“When she left, I could see how heartbroken you were, and part of me wanted to say something then. But you had stopped looking, accepted a life without a soulmate, and I couldn’t help thinking that maybe that was best for you. Because having someone you thought was your soulmate leave you was devastating, but the possibilities that exist when you actually find your soulmate…”

“You were trying to save me from what you went through with Dad,” Jim realizes, heart twisting.

A single tear escapes his mother’s eye, but then she wipes it away and squares her shoulders. She grips his hands again and meets his gaze.

“I was. And that was wrong of me. Because what I didn’t realize until later was that by trying to spare you from what I went through in losing your father, I was also denying you everything that I had before that. The peace, your best self. Everything I started to see in you when we started speaking again.”

“You knew I’d found my soulmate?”

“I knew something was different about you, and I suspected. Part of it was you growing up, and taking charge of your life, and that was all you, but I did think that it was something more.”

“You knew before I did, then,” Jim says, and his tone is light but Winona frowns.

“I’m sorry, Jim,” she says again. “I realize that you still figured things out, but I could’ve made things so much simpler for you. I’m sorry that I let what happened to me get in the way of you finding what you deserve.”

Jim looks at his mother for a moment. In some ways, it’s like seeing her for the first time. He understands her in ways that he never could before, and he thinks he loves her all the more for it.

“I forgive you,” he says, and he means it.

“Thank you.” Winona leans in to press a kiss to his forehead. “That means more to me than you can know, but I’m not telling you all of this just to make me feel better. I’m trying to help you understand that your situation with Leonard isn’t as hopeless as it might feel.”

Jim gives her a hopeful, questioning look.

“I hope you never have to understand exactly what you put him through, sweetie, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that the kind of wounds you gave him aren’t just going to heal overnight,” she says. “It took me years to be able to look past the pain and heartbreak and be able to appreciate the time I did have with your father. Just because Leonard got you back doesn’t mean he won’t have to go through that same process. But he loves you, Jim, that much is glaringly obvious. And if you give him time, he’ll find his way back to you.”

Jim blinks up at her, his eyes stinging.

“Yeah?” he asks, his voice small.

“Yeah.”

Winona stays with him for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. They talk some, but she’s also brought with her a couple of his old favorite holovids, and they’re both perfectly content to sit and watch them in silence. As the natural light begins to fade and the shadows lengthen in his room though, some of Jim’s peaceful contentment fades as he can’t help but wonder when his mother is going to leave. She never does though, just settles more comfortably in her chair and gives Jim one of those smiles that says everything without requiring a single spoken word.

The nurses eventually set up a cot for Winona in the corner of Jim’s room. She spends the night there, and is in and out throughout the next day, meeting and charming the various members of the crew who stop by to see Jim. The atmosphere in his room is light and cheerful, and almost enough to distract Jim from the fact that Bones never shows up. It’s a nurse who stops by to check on him, and another who escorts him to physical therapy.

Winona encourages him to be patient, to let Bones have his space, to not take this as a bad sign. And he manages to listen to her, for the first day at least. But when another day goes by without his soulmate putting in an appearance, it takes a bit more work. Even more so the next day.

Each day that passes seems longer as Bones’ absence continues, and Jim thinks that if not for his mother, he would have started to lose it. As it is, he’s finding it harder and harder to hold onto the hope that everything is going to work out.

*****

The first full day Leonard spends away from Jim is like going through detox all over again. He does his best to keep himself busy, going to the meetings that Starfleet has been hounding him about, checking in with other members of the Enterprise crew, attending to the absolute mountain of paperwork that he’s been neglecting. Even so, it feels like every other minute that he’s pulling out his padd and checking on Jim’s vitals, and it takes everything he has not to go back to Starfleet Medical and make sure with his own eyes that everything is still fine. He is buzzing constantly with tension and anxiety, and his insides are in knots.

But he knows he needs to do this. He needs to stay away from Jim until he can figure out how to keep from hurting both of them when they’re together. Jim was right about him needed fixing too, and that’s not something he can do when he’s with his soulmate.

He stays with Uhura, who is one hundred percent on board with his plan to figure out his shit, and is more than willing to make him stick to it. This is good for a number of reasons. For one, it means that Leonard doesn’t have to return to the apartment that he and Jim share in the city, with all of the baggage that comes with it. And, perhaps more importantly, it means he’s also living with Spock. While the two of them have definitely come to a pretty deep and solid understanding over the last few weeks, and Leonard counts the Vulcan as a friend, they still excel at getting on one another’s nerves. So Leonard is pretty well motivated not to spend much time moping around on the couch, because he will inevitably find himself the target of a pointed remark that will result in an argument that has Nyota sending both of them to different corners like bickering children.

As the days pass, it gets less painful to be away from Jim, but it doesn’t exactly get easier. He’s not sure what it is that he’s waiting for, only that he hasn’t found it yet.

One morning finds him at the Starfleet Academy library, where he has been using one of their computer terminals to look over his reports. It’s one of the few Academy buildings that was completely undamaged by Khan’s attack, and it’s got balconies that provide an excellent view of San Francisco. Leonard is drawn to one of these when he takes a break, and he winds up leaning against a railing, studying the view. The skyline is dotted with cranes and other construction equipment, crews working around the clock to rebuild everything that was crushed to nothing just a few weeks ago.

A frown tugs at his mouth as he looks out over the wounded city. So much damage, so much pain and devastation. How many people lost their soulmates the same day he did? How many people will never be the same?

Someone comes up behind him and leans against the railing at his side. He ignores the newcomer, assuming it’s a student.

“Can I tell you something?” He knows that voice.

Leonard turns his head to look at Jim’s mother, less surprised than he should be that she’s come to find him. She’s watching him with warm, solemn eyes.

“Sure,” he invites, looking back out at the city. He braces himself for what he suspects is going to be a lecture about abandoning her son.

“You drew a pretty shit hand in the soulmate lottery.”

Leonard chokes, and gapes incredulously at Winona. She just gives him a challenging look.

“What, you think that because I’m Jim’s mother, I can’t say that?” she asks.

“Well…”

“I love my son, Leonard. I think he’s extraordinary. I think he’s a great man, and a good one, and I’ll tell you now that if you hurt him I will kill you painfully without an ounce of remorse.” She says the words casually, but her gaze never wavers from Leonard’s, and he knows that she means it. In that case, he’s surprised she hasn’t already stuck an ice pick in his ear. “But I also think that he’s his father’s son.”

It’s Winona’s turn to look away, and a decades-old sadness descends upon her features.

“George was the most incredible man I ever knew. He was kind and brave and principled, and noble in a way that so few people seem to be. He was funny and loving and good, and I couldn’t believe my luck when I realized he was mine. I got ten years with him, and they were the happiest years of my life.” Winona grips the railing, studies the city spread out before them. “But the same things that made him so remarkable were also what made me lose him. And Jim has all of those things too.”

Winona looks at Leonard again.

“I know I don’t have to tell you what losing George was like. And believe me, I spent a lot of time angry with him for leaving me, angry with the universe for bringing us together in the first place. I spent a lot of time wishing more than anything that my soulmate had been someone a whole lot less incredible, someone I would have gotten to keep.”

Leonard feels something oddly like relief at her words. It makes him feel less shameful for the way he’s been feeling. It also makes him desperate for the ‘but’ he senses is coming.

“But eventually I realized that I could never have belonged with someone like that. And as unbearable as it was, impossible as it felt, the day came that I could see past the pain and the heartbreak, and appreciate the time I did have with George. The time that I got to spend whole and loved and alive.”

Winona takes his hand, the right one, and holds it up between them. She taps the name printed on his skin, and her eyes are full of gentle understanding as she holds his gaze.

“You and I, Leonard? We belonged with Kirks. That can be a scary thing, a painful thing, but I think you know how much of a blessing it can be too.” She lets his hand drop. “Obviously I can’t tell you what to do here. But I can tell you that like it or not, he’s the one, and you know it. So the way I see it, you’ve got three options. Option one: leave Jim and never look back, because you think it’ll hurt less in the long run. Option two: stick around, but try to tone back the relationship, try to be just friends because you think that will hurt less in the long run. Or you could go with option three: accept that all things end, and let that motivate you rather than terrify you.

“I don’t regret any of it. The agony, the misery, the loneliness…those ten years I got with George were worth it all. Ten days with him would’ve been worth it.” Winona sighs. “And maybe that’s what a soulmate is, when it comes down to it. The one person who’s worth the pain. Is that what Jim is to you?”

*****

As someone who has been the first officer of a starship, albeit not for more than a few hours at a time, Jim understands when his mother tells him that she has to leave again. The fact that she’s been able to visit for four days in the middle of such upheaval in Starfleet is already a minor miracle, and he can hardly resent her for returning to her duty. But he can’t deny that it’s damn hard to see her go. Things are better between them than they’ve ever been, and he’s going to miss her.

He’s also going to miss the company. His room starts to feel boring and lonely just minutes after she leaves, and he’s considering calling to bug Spock, when his door hisses open. A jolt hits his stomach when he looks up and sees Bones.

“Hey,” he says, cautious.

“Hey.”

Bones still looks tired, but he looks…better. There are fewer shadows in his eyes when he looks at Jim. He’s not wearing his white uniform anymore, but is dressed instead in his favorite old pair of jeans and a green flannel shirt left unbuttoned over a grey tee. He looks like home, and Jim misses him with a sharp pang.

After a beat of silence, Bones steps further into the room, and Jim realizes he’s got something tucked under his arm.

“I brought something for you.”

Jim was kind of expecting a little more confrontation and a little less gift exchanging, but he can’t say he’s displeased by this turn of events. He reaches out with grabby hands, and the small, exasperated smile that curves Bones’ lips stuns him so much that he barely even realizes it when Bones actually hands him something. He probably would have kept staring all day, mesmerized and hopeful, but the smile vanishes as Bones raises an eyebrow and gives him a pointed look.

He drops his gaze to his lap. He’s holding a pair of crutches, old-fashioned in style but well made, with soft padded handles and shiny metal alloy supports. Every exposed inch of that metal surface is engraved, with what a closer inspection reveals to be signatures. Some of them are illegible scrawls, but the names he can read he recognizes as belonging to members of his crew. He runs his fingertips over the engravings, speechless.

“Figured this wouldn’t be the last time you need to use those things, so you might as well have a nice set,” Bones says. “I designed them and Uhura helped me collect signatures so that Scotty could build them. The metal is recycled from the Enterprise, because apparently some pretty big chunks fell off of it.”

Jim finally tears his eyes away from the crutches to stare at Bones.

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s not a very complicated concept. You just stick them under your armpits and-”

“I know how to use crutches, Bones.”

“I know.” Bones sighs, looks like he wants to say something, and then shakes his head. “I brought them because you’re gonna need them for a couple more weeks while you get the strength back in your legs, but there’s no reason for you to stay in the hospital. I was gonna bring you home today, if that’s all right.”

Jim feels his mouth drop open.

“Are you serious?” he demands.

Bones tosses something at him, and a pile of fabric joins the crutches in his lap. Jim holds up his most comfortable pair of Academy sweats, and feels ridiculous when his eyes start to sting.

“You’ve only been here this long to make me feel better, not you,” Bones tells him. “I figured that wasn’t exactly fair.”

Jim wants to be out of this hospital so bad he can taste it, but he hesitates.

“I’ll stay as long as you want me to, Bones,” he says seriously. Bones offers him a small smile.

“I know you would, and that means a lot to me, Jim. But I want you home.” The sincerity with which he says it threatens to steal Jim’s breath. But then his smile turns into more of a smirk. “Unless you’d rather stay here.”

Jim throws off his blankets and scrambles out of his bed so fast he almost falls flat on his face. Bones steadies him, amusement dancing in his eyes. It’s such a foreign but welcome sight that Jim stops to stare again.

Bones rolls his eyes and grabs Jim’s sweatpants from the bed, holding them out. He lets Jim hold onto his shoulder for support as he steps into the sweats, and if Jim hangs on a little tighter and longer than strictly necessary, he thinks he can be forgiven for that. But then Bones is frowning and bending over, and Jim has to sit down or fall down.

“What?” he asks, afraid this sudden good mood of Bones’ is about to evaporate.

Bones doesn’t answer, just leans around Jim and tugs up the hem of his thin white t-shirt. His expression hardens into something unreadable, and Jim’s stomach drops.

“Huh.”

“What?”

Bones shakes himself and pulls back slightly.

“Nothing, it’s fine. I’ll explain at home.”

The word ‘home’ distracts Jim sufficiently, and soon he is hobbling as quickly as he can after Bones through the halls of Starfleet Medical and out into the real world. Jim spends the entire cab ride alternating between staring out the window and sneaking glances at Bones, waiting for the other shoe to drop. But it never does, and they make it up to their apartment without incident.

Jim flops onto their couch with an almost obscene groan. It feels so damn good to be out of the hospital, to be back in a familiar place that sickness and pain and death have never touched.

“Just because it’s your first day home doesn’t mean you get to hog the entire couch,” Bones informs him. “Scoot over.”

Jim goes to comply, but then he hesitates, reconsiders. Knowing he might be pushing his luck but unable to quell his mounting hope, he does half a sit-up, giving Bones room to slide in under his torso. Bones actually does it, and Jim can’t help grinning up at him as he settles his head in his lap. Bones doesn’t return the smile, but his expression is soft, open. And Jim isn’t usually one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but he has to know where they stand.

“Are we…okay?”

Bones sighs, but he settles a hand in Jim’s hair and the other on his shoulder in the casual, easy contact that has been so painfully missing from their interactions for the past few weeks.

“Yeah, Jim, I think we are,” he says. “Because it was never really ‘us’ that was the problem, it was me. And I’m sorry for that, and sorry that I haven’t been around for the past couple of days, but you were with your mom and I needed some time to figure things out.”

He tilts his head up towards the ceiling, lets out a long breath. He seems to forget about what he’s saying as he loses himself in thought.

“And did you?” Jim asks when he can’t stand it anymore.

Bones blinks, looks down at him again. His fingers stroke absently through Jim’s hair.

“You’re it, Jim,” he says simply. “My heart, my soul. You always have been, and you always will be. So instead of worrying about what that might mean for the future, I figure it does a whole lot more good to just enjoy it now. Not much point to playing it safe if I’m not saving myself for anything. You’re my life, so cutting you out of it, in any way, would be about the stupidest thing I could possibly do, huh?”

Jim’s heart lurches as it tries to process about ten different emotions at once. He stares up at his soulmate.

“You still gonna feel that way after my next close call?” he asks. “Because they’re not gonna stop, Bones.”

Much as he might want to promise Bones that he’s never going to put him through something like this again, they both know he wouldn’t be able to stand by it. And they can’t go through this every time.

“I want to show you something,” Bones says instead of answering.

Jim nods and tries to sit up, but Bones holds him still.

“It’s already here,” he says. “Push up my sleeve.”

He doesn’t have to specify which one. Jim takes hold of Bones’ left hand and pushes the soft fabric of his sleeve up his forearm. He bites his lip, gazing down at the exposed soulmark.

He reaches with tentative fingers to trace the words that are still a dull, ghostly grey, but are now outlined in thin strokes of black. His touch still fails to evoke the familiar little surge of connection that has been absent since his resurrection, but Bones doesn’t pull away this time, and something about the faded mark seems less daunting and cold.

“It’s a reminder,” Bones murmurs. “I don’t want to forget what I lost, but I also need to remember what I got back.”

Jim tugs Bones’ arm closer so that he can press a kiss to the faded mark. Then he sits up and twists so that he can look his lover in the face.

“You did get me back,” he promises. “All of me, alive and well. I’m here, Bones.”

“I know.”

And then Bones’ hands are cupping his face and his lips are pressed to Jim’s and their souls are both wide open and finally, finally, there is that connection, unchecked and unafraid, the way it’s supposed to be. Jim can’t help the little moan of pleasure and relief that escapes him as he leans into the kiss. He reaches up instinctively to cover Bones’ hand, and the soulmark on it, and the fresh pulse of connection just makes them press closer together. The kiss is full of relief and urgency and the joy of homecoming, but it ends far too quickly as Bones pulls away.

“I know,” he says again. “Wait here for a second.”

Jim wants to protest as Bones stands and walks away from him, but the bond that is still steady and open between them reassures him. And a moment later, Bones returns to him, with what turns out to be a mirror in his grasp. Jim glances at it, then smirks and raises an eyebrow at Bones.

“Get your mind out of the gutter.”

Bones kneels in front of him on the couch.

“Okay, if you’re trying to get my mind out of the gutter, you’re going about it the wrong way,” Jim tells him. He gets a familiar eye-roll for his trouble.

“Lift up your shirt.”

“If you wanted a strip-tease, Bones, all you had to do-”

Jim breaks off abruptly as Bones sticks the mirror behind him and angles it so that Jim can see the small of his own back. He stares for a moment, and then another.

“You gave me a tramp stamp.” It comes out a little more indignantly than Jim had intended, but really. Has he really done enough to warrant having Oh, don’t be so melodramatic; you were barely dead printed right above his asscrack?

Bones chokes on a laugh, but Jim can tell his amusement is only superficial, a giddy release of the real joy that simmers more calmly beneath it. He sets the mirror down and settles his warm hands on the bare skin of Jim’s sides.

“At least the words themselves a better than last time,” he offers.

Jim would give him a look, but he’s too distracted by the feeling of Bones’ thumbs rubbing in slow circles over his skin. He’s becoming more and more painfully aware of the fact that he hasn’t had sex in over a month.

“I thought you might not have a new one,” Bones says, more seriously now.

Jim touches his fingers automatically to his chest. It does seem a little unfair that he gets to have two real soulmarks while one of Bones’ will forever be grey and dormant. He doesn’t know how to express the complicated mix of understanding and sympathy that swells within him, but then he remembers with a fresh surge of relief that he doesn’t have to use words to share these feelings anymore.

“I’m glad for it, Jim,” Bones assures him. “It means that however much all this has changed us, we’re still…”

He waves a vague hand between them, a unit once more. Jim’s throat tightens. He reaches down and covers Bones’ hand with his own, palm pressed to the new soulmark on the back of it.

“Always,” he vows, backing the word up with a surge of conviction.

They let that settle over them both. Bones hasn’t asked him for another promise, the one that Jim can’t give. But this is enough, this knowledge that no matter what else changes, their souls will always be intertwined. Not even death will be able to conquer what they have.

Nothing more needs to be said aloud about it, and Jim has more than had his fill of solemn moods.

“I can’t believe yours is on your hand, while mine makes me look like a-”

“Lie down,” Bones interrupts.

“Seriously?” Jim complains. “You’re gonna punish me for whining with nap time?”

“On your stomach, Jim.” Bones gives him the slow, sly smile that always sends shivers of electricity down Jim’s spine. “I’m gonna show you that there are certain…advantages to having a highly sensitive soulmark near…other highly sensitive areas.”

Jim is never going to complain about the placement of his soulmark again.