It takes them four weeks, five days and four hours to get back to Earth from the empty space where both Vulcan and the Narada were destroyed.

It takes a further eight days and eleven hours to get through all of the debriefings and funeral ceremonies, and the sun is bright as the surviving Starfleet officers watch dirt being poured into empty graves.

It is only then that they are allowed to rest and grieve and heal.

It is then that it begins.

***

Jim seems to spend his time during and after the official ceremonies sleeping, eating, and avoiding going outside of the room to the point where McCoy gets back after a run to find about thirty cadets crammed into his quarters so that Jim can talk to them without having to step out of his safe thirty feet of space.

It's both comforting and weird at the same time, having so many people in the room at the same time –in the time that they spent on the Enterprise, McCoy had kinda gotten used to sharing kitchen, bathroom and bed with Jim and having to share it with others throws him off slightly. He doesn't feel that he can touch him in the same way, or say the same things, and he even catches himself thinking things that he probably shouldn't which is ridiculous because it's not as though the rest of them can hear him, anyway. And he sort of wants them to go, because as much as he gets on with them all he wants to spend time with Jim, because he knows Jim and he knows that no matter what façade he's putting on today he's not as okay as he makes out to be.

But then their presence makes Jim smile, so he lets them stay.

And then when they finally go and Jim's smile slips that tiny little bit, McCoy can curl around him in the cold, too-large bed and they can lay in silence and listen to the sounds of each other's breathing and their hearts thundering in their ribcages.

They haven't received their orders yet, but then they don't expect to. McCoy can't imagine the amount of paperwork that needs to be done; it's the one thing that he's always hated doing. He still doesn't know the final death count but it has to be well into the thousands – hell, the Enterprise has a capacity of just four hundred and twenty eight alone and there were seven starships headed towards Vulcan. They managed to pick up seventy-two survivors in the wreckages of the other ships when limping through the Vulcan system on their way back home. That's a potential two thousand, four hundred and ninety-six deaths if the other starships are assumed to have the same capacity as the Enterprise.

And that's a hell of a lot of paperwork.

***

It's been four days since the end of the ceremonies, and they're both getting a bit of cabin fever so finally agree to leave the building and have a walk at around about twenty past eleven on Thursday morning.

It's the first time that Jim's been out of the room in the last four days and the first time that McCoy's left the building, but within ten seconds of stepping foot into the bright sunlight there's nothing that he wants more than to take five paces back into the dorm building and close the door between them and the world.

The sheer number of reporters lurking outside the dorms is astonishing, and as soon as one notices Jim and takes a holo with a blinding flash of light all of the others seem to notice him and come swarming over, vidcams recording and nanophones thrust towards his mouth and a hundred eager faces staring up at him, mouths shouting questions. McCoy's first reaction is to grab at Jim's elbow and pull him backwards and he manages to get a grip on his arm, fingers wrapping around bicep, but Jim stands firm, and listens, and watches.

"Kirk, what can you tell us about the Narada incident…"

"…is it true that you saved the Federation?"

"How are you feeling?"

"…Tarsus?"

"What about your time on Grex?"

"Do you think that your father would be proud of you?"

"…juvenile delinquent, and spent time in prison?"

"And what about your mother?"

McCoy can't hear them yelling their questions, and he can't see the flashes of the holocams. His world is taken up by Jim, and the way that he's tense and hard and shaking, and his chest tightens at the sight.

***

"I'm sorry," he says when they're sprawled on his couch a few hours later, legs intertwined and afternoon sunlight shining through the window. They're both cradling bowls of pasta and the room still smells of cooking – benefits of McCoy's postgrad quarters mean adequate cooking facilities. Jim looks up when he speaks, and tilts his head to one side.

"What for?"

"For them. I didn't know they were there."

"Exactly. So don't apologise."

McCoy watches him closely as he digs at his pasta. There are PADDs laying discarded between them and on the table and floor, headlines still scrolling across their screens, screaming atrocities and rumours and tales of the past that McCoy doesn't want to look at. For every story they'd found about how Jim was the Federation's saviour there was another about how he was a delinquent drop-out for the first twenty-odd years of his life, and for every comment about how proud his parents would be there was another about how disappointed they must have been about how he'd behaved before joining Starfleet. The sheer amount of women claiming that they were either married to him or had given birth to his children was equally shocking.

"So what are you going to do about it?" he asks finally, setting his bowl on the floor beside him, and Jim shrugs. He's being uncharacteristically quiet.

"Talk to Pike, see if he can't get them off the Academy grounds. Issue a press release or something, set straight the stuff that isn't true. Tell those crazy women to back off."

"People are going to believe it anyway, you know."

"Let them believe it," Jim says harshly, his eyes dark and fixed on McCoy. "Let them believe it, and see if I care."

***

"And do you feel that the end results of your actions outweigh the ramifications of your initial regulation breaches?" Fitzgerald asks, and he leans forward in his seat as the other admirals watch McCoy carefully, as if they're looking for the crack that they can use to break him open. Only problem is, they're not going to find it any time soon.

"Admiral, if I had a thousand more chances, there's nothing that I would change about the actions that I took," he says, and he thinks he sees Pike smile out of the corner of his eye.

***

It's coming on to late evening by the time the admirals finally allow him to leave, and the sun is low in the sky and setting a dark pink hue over the Bay, lighting up the water and casting shadows in the city. He's tired, physically and emotionally, and all he wants to do when he's finished the trudge across the campus is fall into bed and let Jim soothe him to sleep.

But Jim's not there when the door slides open in front of him – the room is empty and strange and cold. And turns out he's not in his own room, or anybody else's for that matter. McCoy know this because he spends a good half hour trailing around and asking people.

He's not in Pike's office either, because McCoy comms Pike and Pike tells him quite clearly that no, Jim isn't with him, and if McCoy can't find him then he'd better get him found pretty goddamn fast.

McCoy couldn't agree more.

***

He finds him out by the War Memorial, in the end, sat with his knees pulled up to his chest at its base and looking out over the bay. The light's fading and the sea shimmers pink and blue and green, and the glass city down below shines back at them. It's quieter up here, on the other side of the Bridge. There's no cars, no shuttles, no bustle of people. There's just the waves crashing gently on the sand down and around to the west. It would almost be peaceful, if Jim weren't here – but that's simply because Jim's too full of energy to ever be considered still.

"The Memorial's over a hundred years old, you know," Jim says quietly, craning his head to look up and back at McCoy. "Built after the Xindi attack in 2153. Loads of people think it's because of the Kelvin, but it's not. I mean, that'd be kind of stupid – only thirty-seven people actually died, compared to the million killed in the Xindi attack. Why would they put up a memorial for that?

McCoy doesn't reply, and sits down beside him pressing his shoulder against Jim's. It's a pleasant evening, and the air is hot and dry between them. It hasn't rained in the time that they've been back planetside.

"You okay?" he asks eventually, and Jim's shoulder moves against his as he shrugs with a non-committal grunt. He's looser out here, all of the tension released from the harsh line of his shoulders, and his face is more open. Even the words that fall from his lips are less vicious and more honest than those that were spoken in the Academy grounds.

"I'm just tired, you know? I'm tired of being stuck here and not doing anything."

"Running from your problems sure ain't gonna help, you know."

"I'm not running away, Bones," he says sharply, angling him a look. "I already said, I'll sort it out with Pike. I'm not going to break down crying just because some stupid guys decide to poke around in my personal stuff. I just wanted some space, that's all."

"Jim, some of the things they were saying…"

"Doesn't matter any more," he shrugs, and gazes back down at the Bridge. "Look, some of the stuff they were saying was true, some was exaggerated, and some was just flat-out lies. But everything they're saying has already happened and there's nothing that can be done to change any of it, even if I wanted to. It doesn't matter, you see? Because it's all about what I do now that's going to affect everything. Whatever mistakes I might have made in the past, I'm not about to make them again. Can't you see that?"

"I know," he says, and Jim just sighs heavily, and leans a little closer to McCoy.

"They think that they know me, Bones. They find my files and they look up Mom and Dad's records and they talk to a few people back home and at the Academy, and they think that they know me."

"That's the harsh price of fame, kid. They all know your name now, and next thing you know you'll be going to get coffee in town and when you leave the shop, there's be ten gives with holocams lurking to get vids of you just walking down the road. Just gotta rise above it. And hey, you'll probably be back in the black in a few weeks anyway."

"We will," Jim says quickly, his elbowing digging into McCoy's ribs slightly, and he frowns.

"Yeah, that's what I said."

"No, you said you. But we'll be back in space. There's no way I'm taking that ship away from this planet if you're not on her."

"Jim, I went against a whole load of regulations smuggling you onto the Enterprise and my hearing with the Board's not even started…"

"You're coming with me," Jim insists, turning to look McCoy directly in the eye, and there's the sort of persistent determination written on his face that McCoy's become used to associating with Jim now, and the sort that he knows isn't going away any time soon, so he doesn't argue any more. Jim holds his gaze for a few moments as though to assure himself that he's won, and then turns back to look down at the city.

"Have you commed Sam yet?" he asks after a minute or two of silence, and Jim shifts at his side. "It's not going to be long before they start asking him questions, if they already haven't."

"I know. I'll do it tomorrow. You know, those dicks even went and took holos of Mom and Dad's fucking graves?" Jim says with a hollow laugh, his voice tinged with disbelief. "I didn't think people were actually that low. I mean seriously, what are they going to do next? What worse could they do? But it's only a matter of time before they find everyone. God, there's so many people. Do you reckon they've found Carol yet? They'd have a fucking field day with her, and it's not fair on her, or David."

"Carol's smart enough to take care of herself," McCoy says firmly, and Jim lets out a slow, shuddering breath. "And so's Sam and Aurelan. Just stop worrying. People are going to take anything the tabloids say with a pinch of salt anyway."

"There'll be some that don't."

"There's always going to be some that believe the rumours, Jim. But the people that matter to you – your family, your friends, your crew – they won't. You have to have some faith in them."

"And what about you? All the stuff that I've done, you don't care?"

"Kid, if you think that I do, then you don't know me half as well as I thought you did."

"Well then," Jim says, and he tilts his head to one side with a lop-sided smile. "That's all that matters, isn't it?"

McCoy looks at him as the sunlight glints off his hair, his eyes bright, and it's almost enough to dampen the ache in his chest.

***

end.

***