2. The Day Leonard McCoy became Jim Kirk's best friend.

"Dammit, Jim!" McCoy swore as he lunged to grab his roommate before he collapsed to the floor. "Why couldn't you wait for backup!? How many were there?"

"I got 'em, Bones!" Kirk grinned triumphantly as his knees knuckled beneath him.

"Aw, kid," said McCoy softly, taking in the number of cuts, bruises, burns, and evidences of broken bones all over Jim's body. Jim had lost his shirt somewhere and was covering with a jacket McCoy had last seen on one of the terrorists that had infiltrated Starfleet. "I think he got you too."

Jim didn't disagree. "But," he slurred, struggling to unfurl one finger of his shaking right hand. "Didn get th'cadmy inf-inejc—didn get i'th'water," he settled for that instead.

"What happened in there, Jim?" McCoy asked, hoisting Jim's arm over his own shoulders as they walked out of the building.

Confusion washed briefly over Kirk's battered face. "Don'remember, Bones," he said, making a visible effort to shake it off. "But whatsitmatter, he's done."

"You don't remember what happened?" McCoy asked, fear immediately thickening his accent. "Jim, think! Did you have any contact with the pathogen?

"Nawwwww Bones!"

Jim was usually much better at lying than that. "Jim," growled McCoy, dragging the unfortunate to the Medbay. "Either my bullshit detector is improving, or your ability to lie is disappearing."

Jim deflated. "I dunno Bones. It was a fight, okay? I think—whoa!" He pulled up short. "Bones,"

"We're almost there, kid," McCoy assured. "What are you feeling?"

"Head—geez—I can't—"

McCoy almost tumbled over as Jim became a deadweight in his arms. Jim was white as a sheet, his hands coming up to hide his eyes. By the time McCoy had put Jim on a gurney Jim was unconscious, shaking so hard the gurney was rattling louder than McCoy was shouting orders.

Six hours later, McCoy tottered out of surgery into the waiting room to tell whoever was there that he didn't think Kirk was trying to die anymore. It was more habit than anything else—it was what he'd done for as long as he'd been in practice.

But there was nobody there.

Damn, thought McCoy as the adrenaline began ebbing from his system. Damn, damn, damn. Nobody deserves that, he thought, feeling anger rise up to take the place of adrenaline. Poor kid. Poor crazy kid who'd somehow wangled his way into McCoy's friendship. Why the hell did he care about the kid anyway? Was nobody else concerned about him? Huh. Figures. And of course it would be Kirk who had to take the terrorists down. Seriously, every time some crazy took issue with Star Fleet Kirk would be in the middle of it. Did Jim go looking for trouble, he wondered, or did it just find him wherever he went?

McCoy trudged back into the waiting room they'd put Kirk into, stopping briefly along the way to shuck off his scrubs and grab a cup of replicated coffee. He had purged as much of the pathogen as he had dared from Kirk's system, but there was still enough to ensure that Jim Kirk was one sick kid for the next couple days.

Sure enough, Jim's eyes were open when McCoy arrived. "Bones," he rasped. "You still here?"

McCoy ignored the voice in the back of his mind that called him a sucker. "Yep. It'd be a pity to have to train up a new roommate at this point."

It should have been difficult for Jim, with his concussion, to focus on McCoy's face, but for the next few seconds McCoy was the subject of the most intense gaze he'd witnessed on a human being, Starfleet commanders and professors notwithstanding.

"What just hit me?" Jim asked, his eyes sinking shut.

"Four guys and a hefty dose of concentrated pathogen," McCoy answered, not quite able to rid himself of the feeling that he'd passed some sort of test. "We purged as much of it as we could, but kid, you are in for it. Moderately severe concussion and a coupla broken ribs, but I got your shiner and fractured cheekbone with the regenerator. Get some sleep while you can—this is going to be a shitty night."

Jim sighed, but obediently closed his eyes. McCoy grunted, feeling the effects of the whole fucked up mess settling into his bones as he sat down for the first time that day.

Bones felt like he'd barely closed his eyes before he heard Jim gagging.

"Right here, kid," he said, already moving to Kirk's side as he took in Kirk's green-tinged pallor. Grabbing the bucket, he moved quickly, propping Jim up as he brought the bucket up closer to him. Jim was retching painfully, one arm holding his bandaged ribs as his whole body jerked with his movements. Bones waited, his heart twisting as he helped support Jim so he didn't topple off the bed.

Finally, it stopped.

"Done?" Bones asked softly, putting the bucket down.

Jim, exhausted, nodded. McCoy snagged the disinfectant wipes from the table beside him and cleaned up Jim's face. "Here," he said, holding up a glass of water. "Rinse. No, don't fall asleep on me yet, it's nasty to fall asleep with vomit still in your mouth. Trust me, I know."

He did know. So many nights spent drinking himself into oblivion, alone. That was before he met Jim, though. Now the lonely drinking binges were getting rarer and rarer. "That's it," he said as Jim weakly spit it out.

"Jus' like always," Jim murmured.

A ghost of a smile wisped past Bones' face. "Just like always, Jimmy," he agreed as Jim slumped into his arms, his head coming to rest against Bones' neck. Bones wrapped his arms around his friend and guided him back down to the pillows, pressing his lips to Jim's forehead to check for fever.

"Why Bones," teased Jim weakly, his eyes closing under the warmth of McCoy's touch. "I didn't know you cared."

"I don't," McCoy shot back, although he didn't move from Jim's side.

Jim's answering smile was quickly exchanged for a grimace.

"Headache?" asked Bones.

"Mmmm," Jim replied, bringing his arm up to cover his eyes.

"Nausea climbin'?"

Jim nodded infinitesimally in agreement.

"That'll be your concussion speaking," Bones said. "Lights, 15%" he directed. "Your fever's climbin' too. If it doesn't spike soon I'll have to take measures," he said.

Ten minutes later, Jim was throwing up again, his eyes streaming with the pain coming from his rapidly developing migraine and his broken ribs being jerked around in tandem. "Just shoot me, Bones," he pleaded.

"I'm sorry, Jim! Just keep breathing with me, okay?" He answered, rubbing circles into Jim's shaking back. Slowly, the shuddering ceased as Jim again relaxed into McCoy's hold. He laid him back into the pillows again.

McCoy surreptitiously peeked at the clock. 1:43 A.M.

What a hellish night, and barely halfway over.

McCoy began to remember then one of the reasons why being married had been so hard. Every time Joanna or Jocelyn was sick it was stay up all night with them.

Even if it was only a cold and they would be completely fine in the morning.

I'm a sucker like that.

Unconsciously, McCoy began running his fingers through Jim's hair—just like he used to do with Joanna. Jim shifted a bit, leaning into the touch as his breathing began to slow and deepen.

McCoy smiled. Joanna used to do that, too.

He settled in to wait.

It was better this time—a full half hour before Jim began stirring again. McCoy had been watching the sensors, worried as Jim's fever kept climbing. It wasn't even 2:30 when delirium set in and Jim began muttering underneath his breath.

McCoy swore. 103 degrees—but he didn't want to risk injecting any more drugs into Jim's already overloaded system. He resorted to old-fashioned remedies—washcloths on his forehead, arms, and legs to cool him down.

103.5.

"Damnit, Jim! Come on, kid, wake up for me. I need you to wake up for me and drink some juice—it'll help cool you down. Come on, Jim!"

Jim cracked his eyes. "Bones?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. "You still here? You still here, Bones?"

"Jeez, kid. Where else would I be?" McCoy's heart was breaking for Jim. "Open up for me, hey? We're gonna try some apple juice to bring your fever down some, okay?" he drawled softly, propping Jim up on the pillows.

A soft moan came from the back of Jim's throat. "Mm-mm," he breathed in disagreement.

"None of that now; your fever is too high, Jim, and you're scaring me. We need to get it down, and believe me this way's much less of a shock than me putting ice packs in your groin and armpits, and I'm half a degree away from that right now."

Jim exhaled, closing his eyes. McCoy could see Jim swallow the liquid he dripped into his throat.

Jim kept muttering, squeezing McCoy's hand over and over again. "What are you trying to tell me, Jim?" McCoy asked aloud, leaning down so his ear was right in front of Jim's lips.

"Sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry please please please God stop make it stop make it help me please I'm sorry"

McCoy's heart sunk. He knew the sounds of PTSD when he heard it. "What are you sorry for, kid?" he asked, his voice wobbling. He pulled some ice packs out of the freezer.

"I couldn't save them I couldn't save I couldn't I couldn't I he's coming he's coming!"

"Take it easy, Jim, hey!" McCoy said, brushing Jim's sweat-darkened hair away from his forehead. "Where are you, Jim?" he asked, more out of desire to give Jim something to hear other than his own muddled thoughts. "Come back from there—you're safe with me here in the Medbay. Where are you, hey, kid?"
Jim dropped two words into McCoy's rambling. "Tarsus IV."

McCoy went slack-jawed. "Tarsus IV, Jim? You were a survivor of Tarsus IV?" he asked, his voice horrified, his hands stilled.

"Yeah," came the small voice in the half-dark.

"Jeez, kid," McCoy's accent was so thick his words were nearly indecipherable. He brought his hand up to cradle Jim's face before he gasped in surprise. 104.5. "You're burning up! Okay Jim – this won't be pleasant, I'm sorry, but your fever—I'm going to ice you down, okay?" McCoy expertly stripped Jim of his clothing, despite Jim weakly batting his hands away. "Damnit, Jim, stoppit! I'm too scared to sedate you!"

"No ice, Bones, please, no ice no no no cold!"

"Jim, you're risking brain damage!" McCoy finally succeeded in placing one ice packet on Jim's groin.

Jim froze, a groan shuddering up from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. McCoy set the other one down, and then Jim screamed a thin, keening wail that set McCoy's heart to pounding with fear. "God in Heaven, Jim! Jim!"

But Jim's eyes were wide with fear and uncomprehending as he thrashed in McCoy's hold.

"Jim! Jim!" McCoy tore off the ice packs and threw them to the other side of the room. Quickly, he took off his shoes and slid in, right next to Jim, and took the shaking man into his arms.

"Jim, look at me," he commanded, bringing his face up close to Jim's so their noses were almost touching. "Jim," he urged. "Wherever you are, come back! You're not there anymore. You're not on Tarsus IV, kid, you're safe in Starfleet Medical with me, Leonard McCoy, Bones, your roommate!" Hysteria made his voice rise as the wordless scream continued. McCoy, terrified out of his mind, injected Jim with a sedative, hugging Jim's face to his chest as Jim finally relaxed.

Gradually, McCoy's heart staggered back to a steady beat. But somehow, hearing Jim's steady breathing brought on a panic attack for McCoy and he began hyperventilating. Moments later, McCoy lurched into the bathroom just in time to lose everything in his stomach. Breathe, he forced himself, clutching onto the sink to keep from toppling over. He stared at his white face in the mirror and counted until his breathing steadied and he was able to take a deep breath. After rinsing his mouth and face off again, he staggered back out to Jim, afraid of what he would find next. Please, Jim, he breathed, be okay now.

McCoy was relieved to see that the fever, it seemed, had spiked. 103.5. Still dangerously high, but lessening. He took out the decanter of brandy and poured himself a stiff drink to settle his nerves before retrieving the ice packs with a little shudder. Padding back to the bathroom, he took the bucket he kept underneath the sink and filled it with cold water. Again, he walked back out to Jim's side and collapsed into his chair. He began again sponging the sick man's face and chest off. 4:03 AM, the clock told McCoy.

The last time McCoy had been this emotionally drained was when he left Joanna and Jocelyn after the divorce. Tarsus? Jim had been a survivor on Tarsus? He couldn't have been more than what, twelve? What had happened to him there, to make a man scream like that?

McCoy had been more than old enough to have the images imprinted on his mind at the time; he remembered exactly where he was, what he had been doing, hell, even what he'd been wearing when he first saw it on the holovids. He'd been 19 at the time, just starting med school, and the news had shaken the campus to its core. All the carnage, all the horrors, all the blood, and Jim, he guessed, Jim had been right in the middle of it, Jim with his disarming smiles and vicious wit.

It seemed like trouble found Jim, not the other way around, after all.

What had made him scream like that?

McCoy knew it wasn't rational to feel so guilty for subjecting Jim to something that had evidently triggered an intense flashback—how was he to know?

God, that scream! He'd be hearing it in his sleep for the rest of his life. A frisson of anger shook McCoy. God in heaven, why hadn't the kid told him?

It's not like they were best friends, the voice in the back of his mind told him.

Yeah well, we're damn well going to be now. I'm never letting him out of my sight again.

How do I even help him? I've never dealt with anything like this before!

Sucker. Sap. Sucker. Stupidly loyal asshole. Why'd you get yourself involved, McCoy? Didn't you promise yourself—people are too much?

But fierce protectiveness tugged at Bones as he looked at the slack, pain-lined face lying unconscious before him, and the patient, determined compassion that made him such a good doctor was back at the forefront of his mind.

I'll add some degrees, he thought. Psych and therapy and whatever the hell else there is on helping people through trauma.

Finally, finally, Jim's temperature slid below 100 degrees. 5:32. Ten minutes later, Jim woke up, his eyes wide with fear.

"Hey kid," Bones said. "You're safe," he said simply. Jim closed his eyes and leaned into his friend's touch. "You're not in Tarsus anymore," Bones said, wanting Jim to know he knew.

Jim's eyes shot open, and McCoy saw in them the curse his friend didn't have the energy to say.

"Yeah," he breathed out, hiding a sob in a laugh. "You've had a hell of a night, Jimmy boy, and you told me you survived Tarsus."

"Sorry," Jim said, his voice less than a whisper, his eyes filling with tears.

"No, it's okay, kid," Bones answered, one warm hand holding Jim's, the other cradling the junction between his neck and shoulder. The warmth was incredibly comforting, but something about Bones' voice was wrong so he cracked his eyes open again and tried to focus on Bones' face.

Tear tracks glistened on Bones' cheeks.

That was new—painfully new—for Jim Kirk. In his exhaustion, it took a few minutes to compute.

Bones was crying. Bones never cried—why was Bones crying?

Bones was crying for him, Jim realized, his heart sinking painfully. That was definitely new.

To be fair, McCoy wasn't actually crying. But he didn't trust himself to speak and he was trembling. From exhaustion, he told himself.

Jim, feeling sleep pull him under again, reached and fisted his palm in his friend's shirt. "G'in," he mumbled, feeling vaguely that this was important somehow.

McCoy, still silent, complied, sliding in between the blankets. He turned to his side and held himself stiffly, not meeting his friend's gaze.

Jim wasn't entirely sure what he wanted to say. "Look at me, Bones," he said, surprised at the effort it took.

McCoy's gaze was reluctant, but what Jim saw in it shook him. Expelling the air in his lungs, he closed his eyes and shifted, with much effort, right up to McCoy, burying his face in McCoy's neck, one arm wrapping up tentatively over McCoy's side.

All the tension ran out of McCoy's body and he brought his arms up to hug the younger man closer to himself. "I'm here, kid," he finally said as he felt a hot tear run down the side of his neck. "It's okay—I've got you now." When Jim bucked a little in his hold, McCoy brought one of his hands up to card his fingers through Jim's hair, and the added touch sent Jim spiraling almost instantaneously into sleep. McCoy fell asleep himself moments later, physically and emotionally drained. 7:08.

He felt like crap when he woke up five hours later. His blood sugar was low, he decided. Jim, he checked blearily, was still out for the count, although there was a bit more color in his cheeks and he was breathing easily enough. So McCoy carefully extricated himself, muffling a moan as aching muscles made themselves felt (had he clutched Jim to him all that time? His arms sure felt like it).

Coffee. The thought was the one clear one in the jumbled murmur of his mind. Coffee was the first step to feeling human again. Coffee and shower. Maybe not in that order though, he thought, seized suddenly with the need to feel clean again. He set the pot to brew, intending to shower while it percolated. Grabbing a doughnut from the replicator, he tore it in half and ate a piece absently as he puttered about the room, gathering things for a quick shower.

Bones? He heard Jim query, a mild note of panic fluttering about the edges.

"Here, Jim," he said, immediately coming to Jim's side. "How're you feeling?"

"Like crap," he muttered, barely louder than a whisper.

"Yeahhhh," McCoy drawled. "You're gonna feel like that for a while."

"Huh," grunted Jim, blinking. "I don't remember much of what happened, Bones. What kind of a party did I go to last night?"

Bones' eyebrows shot to his hairline. "Party of two, and it really didn't start till we hit Medbay before ending up here."

"We…" he took in McCoy's disheveled appearance. "Did we…?"

Bones' eyebrows did the same thing, where they shot up impossibly high. But instead of his usual snarky retort the doctor sat down by Jim's side and, clinical, held the back of his hand to Kirk's forehead.

Weird way to check for fever, thought Jim, but he closed his eyes and leaned into the touch anyways.

"No, Jim," McCoy finally answered. "The fever was high enough, I guess, to cause some memory loss; you might get it back later."

Something was wrong, Jim realized dimly. He narrowed his eyes as Bones continued. "There was a surprise terrorist attack—they were going to release a pathogen into our water supply, biochemical warfare, you know. You stopped them, but not before getting dosed with some of it yourself. We were able to pull you through, but the disease had manifested itself too quickly—before we were able to pump all of it out of your blood. You've been really sick, Jim, but you'll be fine now."

He got it. "Bones," he rasped. "You were crying."

McCoy flinched briefly. He hesitated before speaking. "I was kinda hoping you'd forgotten about that, Jim," he admitted.

Jim only reached out and took his hand in reply. "Was I talking?" he asked quietly.

McCoy nodded. "You told me about Tarsus."

Damn.

In spite of himself and his clenched jaw, tears still sprang to his treacherous eyes.

So he closed them.

"I'm sorry, Bones," he said thickly. "I haven't done that in a really long time."

"No no no, you have nothing to be sorry about!" McCoy returned immediately. "But…why didn't you tell me? Or have it in your record? I started icing you down – and Lord, how you screamed! I still hear it."

And again in spite of himself, Jim started shuddering again. Tarsus had made him hate the cold. Snow, ice, rain—all of it, he hated the cold (So what had Jim Kirk done? Spent every moment he could outdoors in it until he knew he could survive in the cold forever, if he had to. He conquered it). But to be restrained and subjected to it—his mind went back to that place he'd almost been successful in forgetting and it was getting hard to breathe again.

Bones' hands—his impossibly big, blissfully warm hands—were cradling his face calling to him to focus. So he opened his eyes and focused on Bones' greeny-brown ones, wide with warmth and compassion, almost as grounding as the hands cupping his cheeks. Jim found himself fisting his hands in McCoy's shirt and trying to speak.

"I had to go out into the snow, in the pitch dark, with animals lurking around the compounds because they were hungry too and then he was there and he was so angry, Bones, because he'd found out I wasn't his little pet after all."

By that point Jim's voice was coming in shudders and stutters, barely audible in the quietness of their room.

"But you're not there anymore, Jim. I promise, you're safe now."

"What does that mean, Bones?" he said, accepting the glass of water his friend gave him. "Bones, he's only presumed dead." And he looked Bones in the eye again, somehow desperate to hear how Leonard McCoy, the one man who'd stayed up the whole night to take care of him, would answer.

Bones hesitated, choosing his words with care. "I'm not very good at this, Jim. I'm not very good with people, but I—oh hell. Look, Jim, I'll promise whatever the hell I want to because I've kept every promise I've made, even if some of them have been made after the fact. So even if Kodos is still alive, and you have to face him, and I pray to whatever the hell deity is out there that you won't, you won't face him alone, Jim. You'll face him with a friend, with a-a brother, if you like."

"Bones, you don't want to do this," Jim said, unconsciously clutching McCoy's shirt like a lifeline. "You don't even know me that well!"

"No," McCoy agreed after a moment. "I don't know you very well. But," he hesitated again. "After three years of rooming together I do know you've wormed your way into my affection, even though I pushed everybody away after the divorce. You sat and got drunk with me, a bitter divorced man from Georgia, what, every weekend? For that first year? You didn't have to do that, and I was horrible to you for doing it anyway because—well, because I had no clue who I was supposed to be and I didn't want anyone else caught in the carnage after the divorce, and you'd come with different bruises and scars and made me fix you up and then we'd get stupidly drunk together and I'd swear at you for helping me back to our room and then I got to counting on you to be there, and liking it when you were. Why'd you do that, Jim?" Bones was blinking back tears furiously by this point, waiting for Jim to answer.

Jim did. "I've been there," he said. "That's why. But Bones, you don't owe me anything. I'd have done that for anybody."

McCoy sputtered a laugh. "You really aren't going to make this easy for me, are you, kid? I don't make friends that easily," he said bluntly. "So if I do—I'm not going to let him go just because he's got more baggage than a freight train."

"Bones," Jim broke in with a shaky laugh. "Okay. Please, okay. I'm—I'm not used to—to all this. What—what do I do?"

To be honest, McCoy felt like running away and hiding somewhere he could think. Declarations of undying loyalty? Who the hell did he think himself to be, a knight from the Round Table? McCoy was terrified—what had he just signed himself up for? Could he do

that? Could he do what he'd promised the kid? McCoy scrubbed his hand over his face, his mind scampering after rabbits. "To be honest, kid, I don't really know. Same thing we've been doing, I guess, only…more?"

McCoy felt another laugh sputter out of him at Jim's skeptical upraised eyebrow. "I didn't say I was good at this undying friendship thing, Jim," he said. "But we'll figure it out as we go along, hey?" he said, loosening Jim's grip from his shirt hem. "Why don't you close your eyes and get some more sleep, okay? You need it," he said, moving back to the chair by the bedside. "I'll be right here," he promised, feeling some of his fears turn into sharp protectiveness as he looked at Jim's face, relaxing into boyish innocence as he fell asleep. It'd be okay. They'd be okay. They'd look out for each other and that was nice.

Something slid into place with a click of satisfaction for McCoy as he took a deep breath. It was nice to have someone like that—it had been such a long time since he'd felt like he had family like that. Even Jocelyn—after the first flush of marriage, he realized, there hadn't been real affection between them, or at least, it hadn't been reciprocated. Now it was like having a brother—a little brother, he amended, again looking at the youthful face through sleep-dimmed eyes.

Maybe it was that fraternal feeling that woke him a moment before Jim sprang into wakefulness, his eyes wide and scared in the dimness.

"Bones, I'm going to fuck this up too. Whatever this bromance thing we've got going on is, it won't last and it'll be my fault, watch."

McCoy moved back to Jim's side and wrapped his arms around the shaking kid in a tight hug. It was unforgivably corny, but he remembered reading it to Joanna as a bedtime story and it was too perfect for a scared, sick kid enrolled at Starfleet Academy. Safe in the dim privacy of their room, McCoy decided, it was all right. "I love you – to the farthest planet in the universe – and back. Not just to the moon, kid," he promised, knowing it was the right thing to say when Jim closed his eyes. "Okay. Okay." Jim breathed, leaning into McCoy's side, his breathing leveling out again almost immediately as his head came to rest against McCoy's neck. McCoy held him for a little bit before deciding that right now sleep sounded pretty nice. So he painstakingly shifted Jim down until he was lying down on the pillows, and then McCoy slid in next to him, wrapping his arm around him again and giving in as sleep washed over them both. They didn't wake until midmorning the next day.