ceres_libera | Switch 50/50

Title: "Switch" (50/50)
Author:

ceres_libera
Rating: R
Summary: The life and times of Leonard H. McCoy MD/PhD … If Leonard McCoy's life could get any fucking weirder, it would be … Jesus, he didn't even want to think what that could possibly mean, because it's already been too fucking weird to make any kind of rational sense.
Canon: Based in the ST:XI universe, but strongly influenced by all canon ST-verses.
Characters: McCoy/Kirk, with eventual appearances by all other ST:XI characters.
Notes: It's quite possible that this is the last full part, that all that is left to post is a brief (well, for me) epilogue. In any case, I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your love and support over these past six+ months. You have no idea how much it's meant to me. And remember: the epilogue is still to come. And then, there's that post-lude story idea that I'm kicking around.

+

Leo's tread was heavy as he crossed his dorm room and dropped into the desk chair, thumbing the console back to life from hibernation. While he waited for the comm to initialize, he took a deep pull from the tumbler of bourbon and savored it, raising his glass to look at the amber color as he rolled the generous mouthful around. The Evan Williams had been a gift from Pike -- a thank you he said, for the surgery that would make it possible for him to walk again someday. Leo wasn't foolish enough to believe that Pike's decision to give it to him just one day before the funerals began had been anything other than calculated, not that he didn't appreciate the gesture, or the whiskey. It was truly fine, and unlike any bourbon that he'd ever tasted. He had purposefully stopped himself from looking up how much it had cost. Just the sight of Jim's eyes when he saw the label had been confirmation enough of how expensive it must have been –- he'd never stocked a bar like Jim had, but he'd seen enough of Liam Finnegan's liquor collection to recognize that it belonged on the top shelf, even in a private stash.

He supposed that there would be those who would find his drinking liquor today distasteful, and part of him wasn't sure that they weren't right. Still, he wasn't wallowing, and as the comm began to ring through, he raised a glass to all the beings who had died at the Battle of Vulcan, as it was being called. Today's ceremony had memorialized the Mayflower and the Hood, the first ships into the fray. His glass was still raised when Gram's face appeared on screen and he lowered it to the desktop, alarmed at her appearance.

"Gram!"

"Oh, Leo," she said wearily, her eyes red-rimmed. "It's good to see you, boy, and stop lookin' at me like that. I defy any woman to look good when she's been crying all day long."

Leo knew that he was scowling, but he couldn't stop himself. He'd never actually seen his grandmother looking so … old, and it broke his heart and scared the bejesus out of him at the same time. "What happened?" he asked tersely, fully prepared to take a shuttle to Georgia and punch Ted in the face, despite the ceremonies tomorrow.

"What do you think, Leo?" Gram asked exasperatedly. "The ceremonies were on all day here, too."

Leo dropped his head back, scrubbing a hand over his face. "Gram," he said softly. "You shouldn't have watched."

"Don't you tell me what to do, Leonard Horatio," Gram said sternly. "I get quite enough of that shit from that grandfather of yours. And what am I supposed to do," she demanded, "pretend that it didn't happen, pretend that I don't know just how lucky I am to have you still here, when so many …" her lips trembled. "So many, Leo."

"I know, Gram," Leo said quietly, around the lump in his throat. He'd thought that it wouldn't be as bad as it had been, or maybe he'd hoped that because of the absence of coffins that it wouldn't be as overwhelming as it could have been. But the sight of the risers with the urns on them had been like a punch in the gut, particularly once he realized during the first ceremony, the one for the Mayflower crew, that the short row of urns in the front represented the recovered remains of crewmen, and that all the rows behind, hundreds of urns with their vacuum seal lids not depressed, were empty.

There had only been seven urns in the front row.

"I also think," Gram said, in a more severe tone, "that they really should not hold more than one ceremony a day."

"I know, Gram," Leo said quietly. "But these are only the public ceremonies. The families …" he started, and sighed, "the families have been waiting to hold the funerals."

"So few remains to turn over," Gram said. "I can't help but think … that could have been me Leo, waiting." Her eyes were teary again. "If not for your pigheaded stubbornness, and that Jim Kirk," she added. "And where is that pretty boy?"

"With the Admiralty," Leo said, hesitating before he continued on. "They're turning over the remains from today's ceremonies to the families, and they asked Jim to be there."

"Oh no," Gram's face crumpled. "Why on Earth … " she sighed. "Is he just going to be beating himself up about the ones he couldn't save, or am I wrong?"

"You're dead right," Leo said, wincing at his unthinking choice of words. "But you know that he couldn't have not gone. It's just not in him to avoid something like that."

Gram sighed. "I worry about him, I do, Leo," she said. "He's awful young for all this responsibility."

Leo looked away from the comm, swirling the bourbon in his glass, thinking of Jim and Tarsus, of the stepfathers that he hardly ever mentioned, of the burdens that he had acquired just by being born. "Jim is young," he said, turning back to Gram. "but he's incredibly strong. I'm not saying that I like what he takes on as his own, but … I admire his capacity to do it."

Gram nodded sadly. "They kept the camera on him a lot of the time," she said, "and I don't know how he did it, how he kept his feelings from showing, for the most part. I think part of the time that I was crying, it was because of him, because he wasn't allowed to grieve like the rest of the people there. He had to have known people on the Hood, at the least -- the both of you must've."

"Yeah," Leo said, his voice ragged. He took a pull of the bourbon. "There's no way that we couldn't have." Of the graduating classes of 2258 and 2259 and their nearly 3000 souls, only the crew of the Enterprise and a handful of other survivors remained, a scant 700 beings. The number of names added to the roll of honor, just for today's ceremonies, had been overwhelming.

He couldn't think of it without starting to tear up again, hearing the echo of the grief that had swept the room as name after name after name had been read aloud. Spock had been so still next to him that Leo hadn't been sure that the man was breathing at certain points. It was only then that it occurred to him how truly deep the losses for Spock must run. He'd lost his planet, his mother, his home, but he must also have lost students, friends and colleagues from his second home, the Academy. The dawning realization had frozen the breath in his own lungs in empathy and he'd sat stock still until he had seen Jim's hand move. He couldn't see Jim's face without craning his head, and he didn't want to draw more attention to him, conscious as he was of the red eye of the camera that was most likely focused on Jim and Spock. Jim's hand, broad but elegant in its long lines and fine bones, had been resting on his thigh throughout both ceremonies, in a seemingly relaxed pose, although Leo knew better. When he saw Jim finally lift that hand to his face -- surely to wipe away tears -- that was when he had lost it, and next to him, he'd heard the sound of Uhura breaking, and reached blindly for her hand.

"I'm not sure that this is good for all of you," Gram said quietly. "The cameras and the scrutiny. It shouldn't all be on display. It seems … indecent."

Leo couldn't help but agree, remembering the feel of Uhura's nails biting into his skin as she trembled, struggling to maintain some semblance of control, which had become even more difficult as the sound of Chekov's artless sobbing had reached them. Even Spock's hands had spasmed at the heartbreaking sound. It hadn't surprised Leo that the boy, young as he still was, cried with the abandon only the very young and the very old seemed to possess, but it had hurt to hear it, and to see his downcast swollen face after the ceremony, not to mention Scotty's uncharacteristically grim expression, and the lines of sorrow and age etched into Sulu's young visage by grief.

"There's nothing decent about any of this, Gram," he said harshly. "Not one goddamned thing."

"No," she said softly, agreeing. "No." She looked incredibly weary. "How long do you think it'll be before they send you all back up there?"

Leo looked up at the comm in surprise.

"I'm not stupid, Leo," she said, with a hint of the steel that had allowed her to withstand so much tragedy throughout her long life. "I've been watching inter-galactic politics my entire life, and I understand what's at stake here. They can't afford –" she took in a deep breath, "all of us in the Federation, we're vulnerable now – to those damned Romulans, and the Klingons, and those Cardassians. I knew that when they recalled all the survey ships like the one Jim's mama was on. There's no more room for pure scientific exploration, not when the Neutral Zone needs patrolling, am I right?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said. "Commander Kirk will be back up as soon as they retrofit her ship. They're not going to be as well-staffed as they were, but …"

"They need all the experienced hands they can get," she said sadly. "Even if the experience was just the one time."

"Yeah," Leo agreed gruffly, before adding, "Captain Pike is sure they're going to make Jim's captaincy permanent."

"I would agree with him," she said drily. "Starfleet is clearly using his handsome face to recruit. Actually, all of your faces," she said thoughtfully. "That Miss Uhura is quite a pretty little thing, I must say." She looked at Leo, her gaze incisive. "How is he, really?"

Leo couldn't help the soft smile that broke over his face. "He's all right," he said laconically.

Gram raised an eyebrow. "Is he now?"

"Don't start with me," Leo said, flushing like a schoolboy. "I'm … he's … Gram!"

On the other end of the line, Gram was laughing at him. "Leonard Horatio," she said impishly. "You are done for, aren't you?"

"Gram …" He elongated her name into a bunch of syllables, as peevish as an adolescent as she clapped her hands in delight. He scowled at her.

"Leo mine," she said, calming down. "I'm more happy for you than I am to have been right. You know that much, don't you?"

"I do," Leo said begrudgingly. "I just …"

Gram sighed. "Oh, Leo, how I wish you wouldn't worry so. You moved heaven and earth to keep Jim by your side, to all of our benefit, I might add. You just have to trust that he'll do the same for you. He's promised as much, hasn't he?"

Leo was silent, nodding.

"I don't think that Jim Kirk is the kind of man that ever makes promises that he doesn't deliver on," she said firmly. "In fact, I bet he makes promises very rarely."

Leo huffed out a puff of air in agreement. "Actually, Gram, that's true."

"Then trust him, baby," Gram said. "I'm not saying trust in God, or the universe, or that something somewhere will put things right, but in Jim. You've got to trust that you're just as important to him as he is to you."

"I'm trying, Gram," Leo said.

Gram looked at him sadly. "If I could get my hands on Jocelyn Darnell's neck, I swear I'd happily choke the life out of her! Oh, and don't look at me like that, Leo," she said. "I know that she wasn't the only one that broke your trust, but she was the icing on the cake, wasn't she?" Leo couldn't see below Gram's shoulders, but from the set of them he knew that she had her hands on her hips. "Vile creature."

"Gram," Leo said, "I had my part in the end of my marriage -- more than, really."

"Oh?" Gram asked acidly. "Were you fucking around, too?"

"Gram!" Leo exclaimed, shocked.

"Oh, please, Leo," she said. "How dumb do you think I am?"

Leo's mouth was still hanging open at her uncharacteristically raw language.

"Do you know she commed me?" Gram asked.

"Me too," Leo admitted. "I deleted it after the first congratulations."

"Good!" Gram said, eyes snapping. "Butter wouldn't melt in that foul mouth of hers, the way she tried to charm me and get information about you out of me." She drew in a deep breath. "If you even thought about taking her back," she said firmly, "I'd be calling that nice Admiral Barnett and making sure you were off in deep space for the next five years myself!"

Leo laughed out loud at her ire and her pronouncement, even harder when Gram looked outraged at first, before her mouth began to curl up into a smile, despite her best efforts to control it.

"You are so handsome when you smile, boy," Gram said warmly. "I want to see more of that, once these days are past."

Leo wiped at his eyes, and started to speak, holding up a finger when his comm bleeped. He flipped it open to read the text from Jim that said. "Come upstairs." He smiled at the message. Only Jim would think that stargazing from the roof of the medical dorm in late February was a fine idea. "Give me 5," he texted back.

"Gram," he said, "I've got to go meet Jim."

"I figured as much," Gram said with a smile. "You should see your face, Leo." Leo flushed as she continued speaking. "You tell that young man that I'm thinking of him, won't you, Leo?"

"Yes'm," Leo assured her, then added cheekily. "You want me to tell him to comm you, too?"

"That would be nice," Gram said breezily. "Now get." She smiled at him. "Oh, and Leo?"

Leo, who had begun to root through his desk drawer looking for where his flask had gotten to, turned back to the comm. "Gram?"

"I must admit that I find the idea of blue eyed great-grandbabies quite appealing," she said impishly. "Much more so than the blue-skinned ones I thought I'd be getting at one time."

"Gram," Leo protested. "That's just … highly unlikely, as Mr. Spock would say."

"Oh, please, Leo," Gram said dismissively. "You were ready to use all and any means of artificial intervention with that horrible woman –- manipulated cell lines, synthetic wombs. I don't see what the difference is."

"We're going out on a starship, Gram!" Leo said with exasperation. "And we could be at war any minute now."

"I didn't say you had to have a baby tomorrow, Leo," Gram reproved. "But there's never a safe time, a perfect time. Keep that in mind, boy. 'sides," she said with a sly smile, "they'd be pretty babies." She winked, blew him a kiss, and disconnected their link before he had a chance to do more than gape.

"Crazy foolishness!" he muttered. Because honestly? Babies? His mind drifted, hand stilled in the drawer. They sure would be pretty, though.

"Goddamnit, Gram!"

+

Leo used his comm to light his way out onto the darkened roof, having ordered the lights in the stairwell off before he opened the door. Technically, he should be more worried about the rules they were breaking rather than the paparazzi who might see them, but if he knew Jim, and he certainly did, he'd somehow rigged it that it was OK for them to be up here. He'd probably bribed the security guard down in the lobby to ignore or disable the alarm. When his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he spotted Jim, flat on his back staring up at the stars, arms crossed over his chest like he was hugging himself. He couldn't see Jim's face, because he'd smartly situated himself in the corner where the low parapet of the roofline sheltered him from view. He shifted the comforter he'd grabbed from the common linen room, and quietly walked across the roof, letting the starlight guide him. The last quarter moon hung low in the sky like an iridescent wedge, and would likely be totally obscured from view when he joined Jim.

"Bones," Jim said in an admiring tone. "This is why I love you, man."

Jim sat up and pulled the comforter from Bones, ignoring Leo's raised eyebrow at his choice of words. Not that he doubted that Jim meant it in the least, just ... how like Jim to choose to announce that he loved Bones in such a casual fashion.

"Oh, that's the reason?" Leo asked acerbically, as Jim arranged the comforter on the ground so that it was folded in half.

Jim was smiling as he hummed a noncommittal positive answer. He slid into the pocket of the comforter and then raised up, tugging at Leo's hand to get him to lay down. When Leo did, Jim pulled off his pea coat and folded it, lifting Leo's head and putting it under him, dropping a kiss on his mouth. Then he sighed deeply as he dropped his head onto Leo's chest, using it as a pillow while he stared up at the stars, pulling the comforter up over them both.

"Well, then," Leo said. "I guess you won't be needing this." He fished the flask out of the pocket of his pea coat, as Jim turned his head to see.

"No fair, Bones," Jim said.

"All's fair in love and war, right, Jim?" Leo said, taking a pull off the flask. Above him, the stars burned in the black.

Jim shifted up and propped his head on a hand, staring down at Leo. He ran his thumb over the wrinkle between his brows that Leo was fixing to make permanent, what with all of his frowning, and tipped forward to kiss Leo softly and sweetly. So sweetly in fact, that Leo almost missed the feel of Jim's clever fingers, stealing the flask from his slack hand.

"You're a sneaky bastard, Jim Kirk," Leo said, as Jim tipped his head back and took a drink.

"Also a good attribute for that love and war thing," Jim said affably, kissing Leo again. He rested his forehead against Leo's. "Missed you, Bones."

Leo nodded and kissed him in reply, and then wrapped his arm around Jim's chest when he turned back over to his original stargazing pose. "Tough day," he said quietly.

"Yeah," Jim agreed. He took another pull off the flask and waved it at Bones. "Damn, Bones, this is good. Is this the Williams?"

"Yeah," Leo said, taking it back. "I suppose I should have saved it for a celebration, but …"

"Let's hope that these next few days are a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence," Jim said, and his voice had a thread of exhaustion in it that hurt Leo to hear.

"I'll drink to that, Jim," Leo said firmly and did so, handing the flask to Jim as he raised his hand for it.

"Amen," he breathed out, tipping the flask to the stars.

The silence between the two of them was comfortable, but Leo had no fear that Jim would be lulled to sleep by the calm or the alcohol, even though he doubted that he'd eaten much to counter it. There was a tautness, a tension about Jim's body that Leo knew would take time to dissipate. They were both exhausted by the events of the day, but nowhere near ready for sleep.

"The Newton and the Antares tomorrow," Jim said after a while. "Remember Shields?"

Leo's brow drew down at his words as he searched his memory. "The kid who smelled?"

"Hmm … " Jim said, nodding, and Leo could hear the smile in his utterance. "He got over that, no help from you, Bones."

"Yeah, yeah," Leo said, trying his best to remember what Shields had looked like the last time he'd seen him.

"He'd gotten really tall," Jim said. "A full head over Cupcake."

"You really have got to call the guy something else, Jim," Leo chided.

Jim continued on. "I don't think he was done growing …" He sighed. "Newton."

Leo couldn't help the deep sigh that Jim's observation had provoked, and Jim's bright head rode the rise and fall of his chest like a wave. They'd both been quiet for a few minutes when he said, "Shohreh Esfahani was on the Antares."

"I don't think I know her," Jim said. "Do I?"

"She was Patty's ex-," Leo said.

Jim's head raised up off his chest and he turned to look at Leo. "That ex-?"

Leo nodded.

"Shit," Jim said, and dropped his head back down with a groan. "How's she doing?"

Leo sighed and tightened his grasp on Jim. "She's … OK. Thinking about qualifying as a ship's counselor."

Jim nodded against him. "Change of scenery?"

"Yeah," Leo said, "Plus, you know, the vacancy rate. I dunno though, Jim. She says that she was through with Shohreh before she was killed, but you know, things aren't ever that easy. Not when there are real feelings involved." He paused. "Jocelyn commed me."

Jim's head came up again and he turned to look at Leo, but Leo was pleased to note that there was only the smallest hint of wariness under the curiosity. "Your grandmother hates that woman," Jim said. "I didn't think that she had it in her until she brought her up."

"And why, exactly, were the two of you discussing the ex-Mrs. McCoy?" Leo asked.

"Don't eyebrow me, Bones," Jim said with a smile. "And don't be an ass. We were gossiping."

Leo chuckled at Jim's ready admission. "Just so you know, I'd never take her back."

Jim laughed out loud. "I wasn't worried," he said, "but thanks for the update. She wants you back, though, right?"

Leo shrugged, equivocating.

"Bones, I've heard from everyone that I've ever fucked that's still alive, including that girl from first year that announced in Mess Hall that I was a lousy lay," Jim said.

Leo whistled. "I remember that."

"Yeah, well -- I'd allow my sudden irresistibility to swell my head if it weren't for the fact that one of my mother's ex-husbands suddenly wants to be my pal, when he never had any use for me when we lived in the same house." Jim's mouth had a sour twist to it.

"You delete that fucker's message?"

"Even before he finished talking," Jim said surely. "And then I blocked him. You?"

"The same," Leo said. "There's just some people that we're better shut of."

"You got that right," Jim said, reaching for the flask. "Remember Aribel Ramirez?" he asked, after a few minutes.

"Antares?" Leo guessed, remembering a long ago night at Finnegan's.

"She was already out of the Academy," Jim answered. "Mayflower."

"Shit," Leo said.

"Yeah," Jim said. "Irina's the day after tomorrow."

Leo sighed. "And Rick Jindahl," he said. "And Ellie Pierson."

Jim looked at him with knowing eyes, but didn't comment further. "The Farragut's on Saturday."

Leo ran a hand through Jim's hair thinking of Subie, and all the people that Jim had written to him about the summer before. "We'll get through this, Jim."

"I know we will," Jim answered quietly. "We're the lucky ones."

Leo searched his eyes in the low light, but there was no hesitance or prevarication in his expression.

"It's our duty," Jim said surely, "to go on. To live. I learned that a long time ago, Bones."

Leo nodded. "I'm still tryin', Jim."

Jim's mouth twisted into a smile, and he leaned forward, kissing Leo. "I know you are, babe," he whispered. He pressed his forehead against Leo's as he spoke. "Do me a favor though?"

"Anything," Leo promised.

"Don't hold Spock's girlfriend's hand tomorrow, OK? It was making him crazy to watch you making out with her."

"Jim!" Leo said in exasperation. "I was doing no such thing, and you very well know it."

Jim chuckled against him, stealing another kiss. "Maybe not from your cultural perspective …"

"Ass," Leo said. "He should switch seats with me and not stand on ceremony or rank or what-the-fuck-ever, if he wants to comfort his girlfriend."

Jim's eyes were twinkling. "I know that you're a big advocate of comfort," he said, kissing Leo again, slow and deep. "Solace, I think you called it."

Leo hummed his response into Jim's mouth.

"I believe you said it was a critical component of mental health," Jim continued, covering Leo with his long, lean body.

"Are you saying that you're in need of mental health assistance?" Leo asked when they broke apart. He cradled Jim's head in his hands, looking up into his bright eyes, and then down at his kiss-swollen mouth, feeling the press of Jim's hard cock against his own.

"Only from a fully-qualified medical professional," Jim said primly. "I'm very particular about my medical care."

Leo coughed out a little laugh at this remark, but leaned up to kiss Jim once more before he said. "Well, as long as it's a medical matter … but Jim?"

Jim drew back from kissing him, opening eyes that were already starting to get the languorous drugged look that sex gave them, and murmured a quizzical noise.

"I'm a doctor, not a mattress."

Jim laughed out loud, a goofy hiccuping guffaw that made Leo smile so hard his face hurt as he held onto Jim's bouncing body.

When Jim wound down, Leo said, "No way are we doing this out here on this hard roof. Let's go inside to that nice bed you got me."

Jim stopped laughing and pinned him to the ground with a bruising kiss, before he drew back and said in a sultry voice, "Race ya." Then he scrambled up off Leo and bolted for the door as Leo laughed at him.

"Infant," he said, rising and shaking out the comforter and finding his flask and Jim's pea coat. "Don't start without me."

"What fun would that be?" Jim's voice asked, suddenly right next to him. Jim kissed Leo below the ear and slung an arm around his neck. "C'mon old man, starlight's wasting."

+

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