A/N: Author's notes are bad luck. I'm swearing them off.

- 1 -

My name, among the muggles, is Leonard Horatio McCoy. It's not the name my parents gave me, but I like to pretend that it's the only one that matters. Since I haven't knowingly spoken to another wizard or witch in over six years, the lie comes easily enough most days. And by the time I set foot on Earth's soil again, the years will have multiplied to more than ten – there are no other magicals on the Enterprise.

It brings both pain and relief, this isolation, but it's hardly surprising. When magical folk venture into the muggle world, the magic that runs through their veins tends to have a hate/hate relationship with the electricity that runs through almost everything else. Forced into close quarters, both the wizard and the electronics usually come out worse for it. I can only assume that's why, as the centuries have passed, the magicals have become ever more obsessively determined to stay hidden away in their secret communities, forgotten by the rest of the universe and its vexing technology.

Only the bitter and the desperate abandon that safety for the vagaries of muggle society, where even the simplest magical misstep can see you made a criminal in both muggle and magical eyes. Most who take the risk are criminals already, with that much less to lose.

It should say a mouthful about my state of mind at the time that when I left the magical world, I didn't just run and hide anywhere in its muggle counterpart, but fled all the way to goddamn Starfleet. I wrapped myself in a shield of the most advanced technological "magic" available, and hoped like hell it would keep my past at bay. Merlin, but I was a melodramatic bastard... still, it's worked out for me. Mostly.

But there are moments, like this one, when I look back and wish I'd made different choices. Kept my feet on the ground and my wand in my hand. The fact that they only come when I can't do a damned thing about the impulse – for example, while staring out the viewport that to this day makes me uneasy, thinking back on the first month of a five-year mission into uncharted space – that fact tells me that the feeling is really just self-indulgent bullshit on my part. I'll get over it. I always do.

But until then, it seems that misery has unwanted company.

"What, Jim?" I ask. It comes out testy, but he's too used to that to be deterred. He slings a companionable arm over my shoulders and leans in, close and warm and oblivious.

I seem to have a weakness for emotionally stunted hero-types with martyr complexes. It's depressing, and on days like this it pisses me off, so I shrug out from under his arm and cross my own defensively. After six years of friendship he's mostly immune to my moods, so he just perches himself on the viewport ledge, sprawling back spread-kneed on the narrow platform like he's starring in a porn vid. He's beautiful and I hate him, especially when my glare just gets a sunny smirk in return.

"So, what did space do to earn your disapproval this time, Bones?" he asks conversationally, drawing one knee up and swinging the toes of the other foot like a child, eyes bright, all curiosity and affection. The man was built from light and motion, I swear. It exhausts me just to watch him. It also kind of turns me on.

I scowl, he grins. Stalemate. I turn my eyes back to the deceptively empty landscape that stretches out behind him.

"This is a damn fool thing we're doing, and I'm an even bigger damn fool for going along with it." The declaration would have more weight if it hadn't come out as a resigned mutter, and I grimace. His smile softens into sympathy.

"Having a nostalgic day, huh?" he notes, and I give him a sharp look that I probably shouldn't. For someone completely blind to the obvious, he sees far too much sometimes.

"What can I say, charming away missions like yesterday's tend to have that effect on me," I finally drawl, hiding my wariness behind sarcasm. I'm a long-standing, award-winning expert at sarcasm, but I stick with it because it works – since sarcasm is by definition a second layer of meaning, people almost never look past it for a third.

Jim is certainly still fooled by it. At the least, he lets himself be deflected. "What happened on that planet was not my fault!" he splutters indignantly. The worst of it is, he's telling the truth. Like most heroes, Jim Kirk is a trouble magnet. It stalks him like the Pureblood Wars stalk my nightmares, except with considerably more collateral damage.

I sigh and turn, leaning back to slide slowly down the viewport and settle beside him. The ledge really is uncomfortably narrow, and I have to take the same wide-kneed stance Jim did to keep my ass from slipping straight off. The position pushes us together, shoulder-to-shoulder, hip-to-hip, legs pressed hard against each other for the entire length of our thighs. It's so far beyond casual and friendly that I can't believe he hasn't noticed how I feel about him, but he stays there for almost ten minutes, letting me soak up his light in silence until I remember why I stayed on this madhouse of a ship.

It's still a damn fool mission, though.