Despite the sunlight beating down through the trees to dapple the grass, the air was crisp and chill.

Bones, creature of warm, sunny days that he was, kept close to Jim as he could, basking in his body heat. Not that Jim seemed to mind, linking their arms to draw him closer and inconspicuously burying his hands beneath the folds of their heavy coats. Bones spared his pride and didn't taunt him for so carefully hiding his chilled fingertips. Knowing Jim, he would sooner get frostbite than admit the cold was getting to him too.

Uhura waited ahead in the clearing, arms tucked against her chest and chin tucked lest the cool air creep beneath her jacket. She smiled fondly when Spock subtly repositioned himself to block the frail wind, throwing Leonard and Jim a look that said he held them personally accountable for his girlfriend's discomfort.

"There was a twist I didn't see coming." Jim mused aloud.

"You 'n me both. Think it'll last?"

Jim tilted his head, considering. "Yeah. Spock isn't exactly impulsive." He lowered his voice, "Besides, I think Uhura is the only one patient enough to keep him."

"Careful, his ears are pricking." Leonard stifled a grin, watching the way Spock pointedly looked away from them- as though those sensitive Vulcan ears hadn't heard every word. "You might be right though-"

"Might? Bones, haven't you learned anything? I'm always right."

"I don't suppose you want to bet on it?"

They shared a knowing glance, Jim's no longer the slightest bit guilty. After the past several weeks, he had reached the conclusion that everything happened for a reason and that his careless betting had simply made him an unwitting agent of fate.

"Typical." Bones muttered aloud.

"How much of a bet are we talking?"

"This is a memorial, captain." Spock's voice cut across the space between them, sharp with disapproval. Jim lengthened his strides, ruthlessly tugging Bones along behind him.

"It's Gaila's memorial. She'd love it." He shot back, smile dimming for all of a second.

After the first blush of victory, the hectic laughter and relieved applause when they finally got their orders to turn around and go home, reality had hit home hard. Jim had held it together all through the journey home- even the week that followed in which it seemed every last officer Starfleet had to offer wanted to speak with them.

Leonard had waited patiently for the mask to crack. It took far longer than he expected.

What followed were some of the hardest days Leonard had ever had to face. Between managing his own new nightmares, fending off Jim's well-meant protective streak and trying to guide Jim through his own grief, he had barely managed to snatch more than a handful of hours to himself.

No rest for the wicked.

Jim sensed it too, in that uncanny way of his, and had done everything he could to distance himself, willing to offer comfort but never to accept it.

He still wasn't the cocky young cadet that had strode down before a disciplinary committee and proclaimed there was no such thing as a no-win scenario, but Leonard saw flashes of that man every now and again. Enough to assure him that Jim was recovering, in his own time and special way. By tacit agreement they had both stopped trying to coddle each other, most nights at least.

This morning they had both woken in their best mood in weeks, the promise of an impromptu gathering enough to tempt them into dressing well, even provoking something of the appetite that had all but deserted them for too long.

Here and now, Leonard felt almost normal, and if their banter was anything to go by, Jim did too.

The memorial flared to life as they drew near, names and faces scrolling past projected above the replica of the Farragut. Uhura reached out to pause the projection on Gaila's smiling face.

"They had to take her image four times and she still wouldn't stop smiling." Uhura blinked quickly, banishing a tear before it could begin to fall. "They had to take mine twice because she wouldn't stop making faces at me."

Another tear trembled on her lash, Spock shifting with visible discomfort. For once, Bones took pity and tipped him a wink in what he should have known would be a vain attempt at comfort.

"Doctor, you appear to be twitching spasmodically-"

Jim sighed dramatically, "It's a wink, Spock, not a twitch. He won't do it again." A quelling glance stopped Len from objecting at length. Only just.

At least Uhura's smile had returned, warm and fond as she glanced first at Spock then Jim. They were all a little brittle, but putting themselves back together from one day to the next. "I brought drinks. McCoy?"

"Sandwiches." Not that he hadn't tried for something a little fancier, but between accounting for Jim and Spock's dietary restrictions, sandwiches had been the better part of valor. Even- perhaps especially- with Jim's help.

They chatted as they ate, bantered some and told what stories they could of Gaila, from Jim's bike atop convocation hall to the trap still waiting to be sprung in some unlucky cadet's new PADD. Leonard swore he could see Spock chafing at that one, but he was wise enough not to press. Uhura had been good for him in more ways than one.

Leonard thought there was a chance he could even come to like the Vulcan again some day. If Spock ever stopped slanting him looks that suggested he seriously doubted the "M.D." attached to "McCoy" was deserved. Even Jim had worked out some sort of unholy truce; the two debated almost as equals.

Not that Jim was at all inclined to view anyone as his equal, but then neither was Mr. Spock. It was a match made in the deepest and most terrifying level of hell and Leonard suspected he was going to spend the rest of his career caught up in one of their madcap schemes at all times. So long as they made it home at the end of the day it was a sacrifice he was willing to make.

As CMO, he had every intention of ensuring that was never in doubt.

By the time they had finished their meal, the noon sun had chased away the last of the cold and Spock was visibly drowsing, head dipping and shoulders curling in a way that suggested he was valiantly fighting sleep. It was a losing battle, and soon enough he was braced on Uhura's shoulder, the same arm where she held the last of her drinks, plainly frustrated that she couldn't raise it to her lips.

Jim taunted her, tipping his own glass back and making a show of swallowing contentedly. She flipped him off with her free hand, though the quirk of her lips said it was purely show.

"We need to be gettin' back." Leonard murmured reluctantly. For the first time since the Narada he felt at peace, and it was plain from the faces around him his companions agreed.

Jim perked up at his words though, smiling that much broader. "We're taking Jo to the aquarium."

"Oh joy, Jim's finally found a friend his own age." Uhura rolled her eyes, smiling at him with mocking sweetness.

"You laugh, but I'm the chaperone." Bones sighed, not annoyed in the least but compelled to put on a show.

He had worried at first, how Jim might take the news that he needed a day or two with his daughter. For nothing, it turned out. Jim had very tactfully suggested that he could arrange to be out of their temp quarters for awhile. Bones had not so subtly suggested that he wasn't ready to be separated from Jim either.

Joanna certainly had no complaints, having discovered a new, very amenable partner in crime. Leonard found that his jealousy, when it reared its ugly head, could be silenced quickly simply by taking in the picture the two made together: one was fair and the other dark, but both wore exactly the same mischievous grins.

Leonard loved them dearly, both of them.

"I'll see you next week." Uhura kept her voice low, carefully adjusting her weight to accommodate the Vulcan slipping deeper into sleep, drowsing like an old hound in sunlight.

He barely stifled a smirk, knew Jim had the same thought when he bit his lip to keep the grin from his face. Uhura read them in that easy way of hers and shooed them away, laying her glass aside and leaning into Spock to make herself a more solid support. He spared a second to envy them, and only a second before Jim was curling around him again to link their arms.

"How long do we have?"

"Before she gets here or before she goes?"

"Goes."

"The weekend." The words came out on a heavy sigh. It wasn't near enough time, not after all he had gone through, but it was more than he had expected or could even have asked for a few months ago. And selfishly there was some small corner of him that wanted a few days alone with Jim too before their first reconnaissance mission. Now that they were both on the mend, he wanted nothing so much as to spend another day or two in bed, relearning each other's bodies and becoming more thoroughly acquainted with each other's thoughts.

There would be time enough for that later, though. Years if they had their way, and Jim would insist upon it.

Jim misinterpreted his heavy sigh, "That's for the best, I think. We're gone again by the end of next week and it's going to take awhile to prepare." To brace.

It would be several years before Leonard ever set foot on a ship without remembering how easily they broke apart once those shields failed. Longer before he forgot the silence when everything went wrong- he redirected his thoughts, curling and uncurling his fist in the fabric of Jim's coat to bring himself back to the present.

"You're right. It's for the best. I just can't help thinking that one of these days we'll be off on a five year stint, and by the time I get home she'll be a young woman. I'm not even going to see her grow up. Hell, I very nearly didn't anyway."

"That's at least a couple years out," Jim soothed, "And I promise we can arrange for shore leave in friendly space if I have to personally-"

Len heard the smile in his voice and stopped him before he could complete the thought. "I don't want to know, Jim. Plausible deniability."

"Right. Of course, Bones." He was still smiling though, and his eyes were exactly the shade of blue that always presaged trouble.

"Besides, I have make-up classes to attend. I'm sure that'll give me plenty of time to keep ground side." Leonard grimaced. He officially held the record for the most number of times any cadet had failed their flight sims, but it would hardly have looked good for the 'fleet if one of the heroes of the hour and CMO of the flagship was stranded earthside all the time.

Fifteen hours of remedial lessons, and that only because he had no less than three admirals and James T. Kirk on his side.

It could have been worse, he supposed, and in all the destruction and fanfare following Nero's defeat he hadn't hardly had time to dwell on it at all let alone start chipping away at those hours.

At least Jim had made it clear that when he was ready, he would have a very capable instructor once more.

"We could chip away at that tonight, if you wanted. 'Fleet technology is the best anywhere. Joanna would probably love it."

And they had circled back to the crux of his fey mood: all the milestones he was bound to miss while they were away.

But Jim was offering him one now if he chose to take it. "Alright. Just an hour or so, those damn rooms make me dizzy."

"Your own piloting makes you dizzy." Jim snorted, "Don't lie to yourself, Bones, or we'll never get anywhere with this."

He yelped when Bones pinched his ass rudely, laughing high and lightly for the first time in weeks, his old spark retuning now that he had properly paid his respects. Bones was watching him, no sign of the considering look in his eyes Jim had been dodging all week. Right now, at this moment, they were very nearly the same men they had been before the alarm sounded.

So of course he did what he should have done then before they nearly parted ways and dragged Bones down for a kiss meant for history texts: tender and demanding and all the right kinds of possessive. It was as much a promise as a suggestion; neither one of them would leave the other come hell or high water and they had already been through one so what surprises could the other hold?

He chuckled when Bones drew him nearer still, curving a sturdy arm about his back and leaning into him, imprinting every line of his body into Jim's own.

"We have an hour or two before we need to pick her up." Len whispered hoarsely, breath hot against the skin of Jim's ear. "Our quarters?"

"Hell yes." Jim panted, still a little ragged and out of breath but in the best of ways.

It wasn't the fairytale ending either one had envisioned before the world went to hell, or the casual fling Jim had been looking for in a dive bar one fateful night, but both knew the odds had finally turned in their favor, and whatever this new understanding was, it was better than a dream.

It was real.

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Since I've had a question from a guest reviewer regarding the custody dispute and all, I'm going to go ahead and include the expanded AO3 explanation here:

This fic very much did not end in the way it was intended to. A lot of stuff ended up on the cutting floor mostly because I am in law school, I am dealing with paperwork like this on a daily basis, and if I have to look through another out of court settlement briefing I'm going to scream/tear my hair out/ some unholy combination thereof. I'm only half joking. So rather than the bang I chose the whimper. :p

In short, I am not in the same place (in any respect) as I was when I started this fic, and consequently the outline became uncooperative until I changed it. I'm sorry for any disappointment, but this is complete as I can make it.