Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek or its characters.

Leonard first remembers seeing those too-blue eyes on a fifteen year old boy, dragged into the ER by an angry, older man. He wasn't angry at whoever had laid into the kid, bleeding all over the place. He seemed more angry at the kid, and that spoke volumes.

Made Leonard wish he could make himself corporeal, so he could slug the fucker across the face. Having hung around the hospital for at least a year, he knew the CPS wouldn't be able to do enough for this kid.

He glimpsed his chart later, picking up the name: Jim Kirk. He wasn't sure why he bothered, but he had a sickening feeling that the kid was going to be seeing a lot of this ER, and therefore, Leonard would be seeing a lot of him.

Leonard could be seen by people, when he wanted them to. Life as ghost was boring a lot of the time. He was bound to the hospital, since that was where he had died. He couldn't remember it clearly. There had been a car accident. He faintly remembered being wheeled into the ER. And then, he woke up without any injuries, and no one could see him. Didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened. It seemed kind of ironic that he was forever bound to a hospital, since he had been pursuing a pre-med course of study in college.

Leonard found himself lingering near the curtained-off area where Kirk was being treated. He walked through the curtain, watching the doctor and nurses patching up the damage. Leonard had seen enough to know that the injuries weren't life threatening. The kid didn't make a sound the whole time.

When he was stabilized, the doctor and nurses left him alone, telling him that another nurse would be in to schedule follow up tests. Leonard stepped back behind the curtain and concentrated. It had taken more than a little practice over the past year to control when he was visible. But now he had it down to science. He pushed the curtain aside and stepped closer to Jim.

Jim just looked at him with those blue eyes that had already seen too much. "Who're you?"

"People 'round here call me Bones," Leonard answered with a shrug.

"What do you want?"

Leonard shrugged again, suddenly wondering what the hell he was doing. "Thought you might want to talk."

Jim's eyes narrowed. "Are you CPS? Or a cop?"

"Nope. Just a ... friend of the hospital."

Jim rolled his eyes. "Whatever. I don't want to talk. Go away."

"Have it your way, kid." He turned away.

"Wait."

Leonard turned back to face him.

"I'm Jim. I'd shake your hand if mine wasn't broken."

Leonard smiled slightly. "Nice to meet you, Jim." He managed to keep the kid's mind off the pain by getting him to talk about sports. They were interrupted by the loud sound of another trauma coming in. Ambulance sirens, multiple gurneys, doctors and EMTs shouting.

Jim's eyes widened. "What's that?"

"Probably a car accident, from the sound of it."

"How bad?"

Leonard shifted his gaze through the curtain and walls. It didn't look good. "Pretty bad I would guess." When he looked back at Jim, for the first time, the kid looked upset.

It wasn't always pleasant being a ghost in the ER. He could feel it when people died. He sometimes wondered why they just seemed to float away peacefully, when he was stuck in the hospital for all eternity. He shuddered; it felt like ice trailing up his spine.

Jim's eyes missed nothing. "What is it?"

"They lost someone."

"How can you tell?"

Leonard shrugged. "I just know."

Nurse Chapel came through the curtain. She looked at Leonard; she was starting to get used to him hanging around. "If you don't mind, I need to get Jim here ready for the MRI."

Leonard gave her a mock salute. "Yes, ma'am." He looked back down at Jim. "Try to stay out of here, Jim."

Jim smirked. "I'll see you around, Bones."

Leonard walked out of the curtained area and quickly faded back to invisible. Maybe he'd go up to obstetrics. That tended to make him feel better when people were dying.

Christine Chapel smiled at Jim as she checked his vitals. "So, you met our friend Bones."

Jim raised an eyebrow. "Yeah. He seems cool."

Christine realized that Bones had revealed nothing to the kid, and she probably shouldn't either. Unfortunately, Jim was too curious for his own good.

"So, who is he? What does he do here?"

She sighed. "Not everyone sees him, Jim. You should feel ... well, maybe honored is too strong of a word."

Jim blinked. "What are you talking about?"

"He's a ghost."

Jim stared at her for a moment and then laughed. "Yeah. Right."

She shrugged. "Believe what you want, but it's true."

Jim looked unconvinced. Christine shrugged it off and got back to work.

The next time Jim ended up in the ER, at least it was his own damn fault, instead of his stepfather's. He'd gone out onto the frozen pond with his friends, even though it was late in the season to do so. He had yelled at the others to get back and managed to drag himself out of the frigid water.

After that, things got a little fuzzy.

He opened his eyes, taking in the curtained off area of the ER. He was piled with blankets and stopped shivering, but he still felt cold.

"Wish I could say it's nice to see you again, Jim."

Jim's eyes snapped back open and saw Bones standing beside the bed. He looked exactly as he had before: same clothes, same dark hair and amazing eyes, same everything. "Who are you?"

"I'm wounded. You don't remember me from your last visit?"

"You're Bones. But the nurse said you're a ghost. Think she was trying to scare me."

Bones shrugged. "No, that's the truth."

"Prove it."

Bones sighed and then backed up, walking through the curtain without opening it.

"Holy shit!"

Bones stepped back through the curtain. "I can go invisible, too, but I don't want you to go into shock."

Jim felt his mouth opening and closing a few times.

"What made you think that swimming this time of year was a good idea, Jim?"

Jim couldn't answer, because all he had were questions. Bones was probably used to that, because he sighed dramatically.

"Go ahead."

Jim wanted to know everything: how he had died, why he was stuck here, did he have telekinesis, could he talk to other dead people. Bones answered good naturedly but admitted that he didn't know why he was stuck in the hospital.

"That's how you knew someone had died last time, isn't it?"

Bones nodded.

"So ... one more question then. Why did you come talk to me?"

Bones looked away for a minute, and he seemed slightly uncomfortable. "You looked like you needed a friend, and I was around."

Jim processed that information. "Thanks."

As predicted, Jim Kirk was incapable of keeping himself out of the ER for more than four months at the longest. Leonard always went to visit him, trying to distract him from the pain.

He watched the kid grow into a young man, even if he didn't act like one. But Leonard could tell he was smart - real smart. It was a shame that he seemed doomed to be stuck in Riverside, Iowa the rest of his life.

When Jim came into the ER after a particularly vicious brawl at the age of 22, Leonard had gone off on him, yelling at him about wasted potential. Jim had just listened with wide eyes. That was unusual.

"Damn it, Jim, just because I don't have a life doesn't mean you shouldn't. Jesus Christ." Even after seven years as ghost, Leonard still felt the urge to flop into a chair in exasperation.

"Sorry," Jim mumbled.

Leonard blinked. In all the years he'd known Jim Kirk, he had never seen him go quiet like this. He sighed. "What's on your mind?"

Jim shrugged. "Just that you're right. I probably should have more of a life than a ghost." He looked up at Leonard almost shyly. "I'm gonna miss you if I'm not in here all the time, though."

Leonard growled. "Jim ..."

Jim held up his uninjured hand in surrender. "Kidding! Please, no more lectures on how smart I am. I get it, Bones. I really do."

Leonard was skeptical, but then he didn't see Jim for three years. And he had to admit, that he did miss him. He decided this was incredibly unfair. He was dead, a ghost, stuck in a hospital, and he still felt things like loss. He started to feel guilty about wishing that Jim would be wheeled through those ER doors.

Leonard paced the halls of obstetrics, listening to the women in labor. Even though he couldn't feel life entering the world the same way he felt it leave, it was still a small comfort.

"Bones?"

He looked up and saw Jim Kirk walking down the hall, all grown up. He was wearing a crisp suit that seemed to almost clash with amount of stubble on his face. He was scanning from side to side.

"Bones?"

Leonard made sure no one else was looking and made himself visible. "Jim."

Jim jumped just a little. "There you are!" His face split into a grin. "I remember you telling me once that you liked to come up here to calm down."

Leonard nodded. "Yeah. It's been a while, Jim. You look good."

Jim's smile turned almost sheepish. "Yeah, well. You gave me a wake up call the last time I saw you, so I decided to try and do something with my life. Finished college and applied to law school."

Leonard raised an eyebrow. "I'm impressed. Good for you, Jim." He felt a smile pulling at his lips. "Thanks for letting me know."

"That's not the only reason I'm here."

"No?"

"No. I'm pretty good at research now, so I went looking through the papers and public records for a fatal car accident that happened here ten years ago where a male of about twenty was involved."

Leonard paced down the hall, and Jim followed him. He felt oddly exposed. "Yeah? What'd you find?"

"There weren't any."

Leonard froze. "What? What are you talking about? I remember it!"

"Listen, Bones. I said there were no fatal car accidents. None where a male of about twenty years of age was killed. But there was one involving a guy named Leonard H. McCoy. Only, he wasn't killed. Almost but not quite. He's been a coma for the past ten years."

Leonard fervently wished he could grab onto something, because it felt like the world was spinning around him. "No, I ..."

"Bones, do you remember dying?"

Leonard shook his head. "But then how am I here? This doesn't make any sense."

Jim's eyes were sympathetic. "I don't know, Bones. But I think you need to see something. I'll meet you on the nineteenth floor, okay?"

Leonard nodded, letting himself drift up through the floors of the hospital until he reached nineteen. Jim came through the elevators a few minutes later and walked decisively down the hall, turning into one of the rooms.

Leonard stared. Out of body experience didn't even cover this. He was looking at himself, lying on the bed, attached to all sorts of monitors. His skin was pale, and his hair had grown out to a ridiculous length.

"No," he whispered. "This isn't -"

"That's you," Jim said softly. "Leonard McCoy. You've been here all along. You're not dead."

And that's when Leonard learned that ghosts - or whatever the fuck he was - could still cry.

Jim just stood there calmly. The kid really had grown up. Which was good, because Leonard was about to do something very stupid. He asked him for help.

"What do I do?" he gasped, wiping at the tears that wouldn't stop. "What happens now?"

"I'm not sure," Jim told him. "But I've made some connections over the past three years, and I'm going to get some specialists to look at you."

Leonard felt like he couldn't draw in a breath, even though he didn't need it. "Why? Why would you do that?"

"Because you're my friend, Bones. You helped me. Let me try to help you."

Leonard shook his head. "No. If I've been out for ten years ..."

"People have woken up after being a coma for way longer than that."

"Jim, don't you get it?" He was angry again. "You're still wasting your life! I don't have one, Jim. I'm just lyin' on that bed. You've got a life. Don't waste it tryin' to save me."

And at that, Jim Kirk smirked. "Try to stop me."

Leonard was at a loss for words; he tried to stop staring at his own face.

"Besides, now I can do this," Jim said, reaching down to the bed and covering Leonard's hand with his own.

And Leonard could feel it. Not in detail, but his hand suddenly felt warm. He stared at it.

"You can feel that?" Jim asked hopefully.

"Y-Yeah."

Jim grinned. "Then don't give up yet, Leonard. I don't believe in no-win scenarios. And even if you don't wake up, I'm going to keep visiting you."

"Jim -"

"AndI'll keep up with my classes. I promise."

They were both quiet for a while, though Jim didn't withdraw his hand.

"Thank you," Leonard finally whispered.

Leonard had wondered if his vision as a ghost was enhanced somehow. If he saw colors differently. But that was answered when he opened his own eyes for the first time in eleven years. Jim Kirk's eyes really were that blue. Stunning really, even as tears escaped them.

"Bones?"

It took a lot of effort, but he managed to squeeze the hand that Jim was holding. "Hey, Jim."

A choked sob escaped Jim, and Leonard felt his heart clench at the sound. Jim sucked in a breath and managed a watery smile. "Welcome back."