leftwithmybones | Dated July 4th

Dated July 4th

The truth is, the last week has been one of the roughest that McCoy's ever had to deal with. He's been worried about Jason and Bucky in the Clinic for one, not to mention the part where Jim not only forgot everything, but has started to get a slideshow of the bad shit he's dealt with during his time. It's probably a slideshow of horrors in his head. He thinks he ought to be forgiven for the way he's thrown himself into work, trying his best not to think about Jim.

Still, he's not completely himself. His jeans and polo shirt are wrinkled and he hasn't bothered with the lab coat, strewing it over the nearest desk. His eyes are tired and every sample he looks at strains him to the point of exhaustion. He'd contemplate giving up, but then he'd have to head back home and wonder what new terror Jim's going to remember today.

He really doesn't want to do that.

So he works. He works because it's the best alternative, right now.

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"Not fucking likely," McCoy scoffs, the incredulity of the idea the funniest joke he's heard in a while. "Sorry to ruin your fantasy, kid, but I was a hell of a mess for the first two years and by the third, I was so busy trying to TA courses, work at the hospital, and prove to a bunch of children that I'm field ready that I saw you maybe an hour a day when I wasn't patching you up or collecting your ass from the nearest party." Or study group or whatever new thing Jim had found to intrigue him on a weekly basis.

"So I acted out," says Jim, turning that over in his mind. The way Bones tells it, and only in frustratingly small fits and bursts, Jim had been a terror at the Academy. As much as Jim feels like climbing the walls every time he looks at Bones, he thinks he understands. "I probably wanted your attention, you big, stoic blowhard."

He rolls his eyes because no, he still doesn't believe it has anything to do to that. "Again, doubtful," he grunts, because he's not under the delusion that he mattered the most during those years when Jim cared the most about proving Pike's prediction wrong and making it in three years instead of four. "And I wouldn't say that you acted out, not exactly. I don't know, I think it was more making up for lost time."

"That's not easy, then," says Jim, "That's an efficient use of time. Did you like me like that then?" he presses. "Or were you too busy to think about it?"

"You had a bit of a reputation. You were still easy," he mutters, shaking his head. "So, no, I loved you, but I didn't want you back then. I mean, even if we had made it together, it'd probably have fucked up and we'd have hated each other, so I'm glad it took as long as it did. Besides, on the ship, it would've been even more complicated."

"Probably," Jim murmurs, even if he has no idea if that's true. There's probably rules and regulations and a ton of other things Jim doesn't actually care about if it means having Bones. Too bad it's not a mere rule standing in his way now. Fucking amnesia.

"I bet I wanted you," he says. "No way I lived with - " He waves a hand. "That, and didn't."

"I want it on the record that this is only because you've been flattering me for twenty minutes and it's just a bad idea not to reward that," he says, stopping their walk and securing the charts with one hand while the other goes to his shoulder, long enough to grip and press a soft kiss to Jim's lips before easing back. "And I know it would've gone to shit. I probably would've had to transfer to someone else's ship, be their CMO."

And after McCoy forcibly infected Jim just to have him on board the Enterprise, there's no way in hell he'd be okay with that kind of separation.

To Jim's great credit, he doesn't try to deepen the kiss, nor hold onto Bones when he pulls back, but he wants to do both so badly. Everything about Bones feels like home, he can't get enough of it. He's not sure what the real Jim was thinking to have resisted so long, ship's rules or no.

"You never know," he says, watching Bones' mouth. "It might've been okay. I bet we would have found a way."

He watches the way Jim's looking at his mouth and it keeps shorting out his goddamn brain. He swallows hard, trying to walk away and when he does, something he's vowed not to say pops out. "Well, you found a way around it here, what with the marriage thing to someone else and all," he mutters, stopping in his track the minute he hears what he says and fuck, but fuck, but Jim might not understand that now, but he's going to.

Fuck.

Jim's not there when Bones turns around.

Jim is, in fact, running on tired feet for the Council office. There are records there, he'd discovered that on his first day in this brave new world, but he hadn't thought to read the marriage registry. Why would he? Bones only ever said he had a boyfriend.

Tearing through the door, Jim's not sure why he's hurrying towards something so awful. To see it on paper, maybe, to make it real instead of just some insane idea that will have him sobbing with insanity or laughter, to make it something he can't refute no matter how much he wants to.

He tugs open the right drawer, yanks open a file and reads. James T. Kirk and Dr. Spencer Reid, married June 5, 2010.

Jim sits down hard.

McCoy's going to strangle him and then he's going to tape him to the nearest chair and he's going to enjoy it. "Fuck," he swears again, for good measure. "Jim!" he shouts, loud as he can. "Jim Kirk, where the hell did you go?" he bellows, standing alone now because he made a mistake and the one thing he'd been keeping from Jim's out in the open now, which he supposes was an inevitability at some point.

He just didn't want to be the one to tell it.

Jim doesn't answer. Throat closed up tight around a rising swell of panic, he's not sure he could, and he moves away from the marriage registry, rifling through personal files instead.

Married, and not to Bones. Jim's feelings for him have been the one thing that's made a damn bit of sense since waking up blank and now it's gone, and is this place for fucking real? Is it serious in its expectation that he live through this and not lose his fucking mind?

Jim finds the right entry and wants to put his hand through the wall. Off-island experience includes time on the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit; PhDs in Mathematics, Chemistry, and Engineering; BAs in Psychology and Sociology. This is...Jim's type? Ingenious, accomplished, that much matches Bones, and im wonders if he should feel something, but he doesn't even have a face for the guy. Pale and thin, long brown hair, brown eyes.

Disappeared January 2011.

Jim doesn't know if the swoop in his gut is relief or disappointment.

When Jim doesn't call back, when Jim doesn't reappear, McCoy starts checking the nearby areas. The orchard's empty, so's the lab and the clinic. It's when he gets to the council office that he finds him. He sighs and leans against the wall, watching Jim as he goes over the records. "Well?" he asks, hating that he's going to live through this twice. Once now and once when Jim gets his memories back. "Find what you were looking for?"

"How the hell would I know?" Jim snaps, fingers shaking in their too tight grip on the file. "I don't know who I am or what I want, apparently, and who the hell is this guy?" Jim almost shouts, now waving the page. It's not fair, but none of this is, and he can't keep it in, can't hold it together, not this on top of everything else.

"Why did I marry him instead of you?"

"Because you loved him, okay? Look, I know you don't remember this and you wouldn't even if you had all your memories, but I was with someone else at the time and I loved her, too," he warns, thinking it's a little like speaking ill of the dead. He still thinks of Jean, sometimes, and the way her hair fanned the pillow and how they could discuss medical cases over dinner, but she's gone now and he's got Jim and he's happy, but it's not right to just throw it away. "You fell in love, Jim. It happens. It's not a crime, it's not wrong. Okay?" he finishes roughly.

"It is wrong," Jim says with a shake of his head, "It feels wrong. It's supposed to be you, I knew that much before I could even remember my own name."

He watches Bones, watches his face go distant, sees longing in his eyes, and Jim is glad he's already sitting. "Do you really want this?" he asks, quiet. "You and me? You didn't tell me about us, or this, if...if I never started getting my memories back, would you have just let it all go?" He swallows. "Let me go, and found somebody else?"

"You're always, always going to be my best friend," McCoy wants Jim to know, even if that seems like it falters by the day depending on his mood. "And yeah, Jim, I really want this. Forgive me for thinking that free will ought to be a consideration," he snarls, not feeling particularly polite about any of this. "And no, if you weren't remembering, if time passed and you still didn't remember, I'd figure out how to make it work. But I needed to give you the chance to pull it back yourself otherwise I'd feel worse than the grime on someone's foot."

Jim watches him as closely as he can, and by the end, feels something loosen in his chest. Bones won't kiss him, but he will, he wants to, he's just waiting, and he's not giving up.

"M'sorry," Jim exhales, running a hand through his dirty hair. "It's just a lot. All of this is just. It's a lot."

Cautiously, McCoy approaches, easing planted feet on either side of Jim as he drops into his lap, easing and sitting on his knees lightly. "Hey," he soothes, pressing a kiss to Jim's forehead as he winds his arms around Jim's neck for balance. "I know. Trust me, I know. We'll get through this. And when it all comes back, I'm hoping you'll thank me for waiting."

Beneath Bones' sturdy weight, Jim feels another rush of boneless relief, and he curls forward, arms thrown around Bones' waist and eyes closed for that brief press of lips. "It'll come back," he says, because Bones needs it as much as Jim does, and that's more than enough reason. "All of me will come back, it will. And I don't want to be anybody else's husband or boyfriend or best friend or whatever. Memories or not, I know that much."

"I don't know, I think you'd make a fine husband for our cat," McCoy says wryly, wondering when Plum became theirs instead of just Jim's, given how little McCoy likes the damn thing. "You two have the same stupid sense of curiosity. And you shed about the same."

Jim barks out a surprised laugh, content to close his eyes and just enjoy Bones' warmth. "I do not shed. I don't know about purring, though, I have a sneaking suspicion I just might."

"Admittedly, you do sometimes make these odd noises in your sleep," McCoy admits, given that he's had a lot of time to get used to him. "I guess I ought to just be grateful that you didn't talk about your former conquests while you slept. Talk about giving a man a complex."

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