Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

As it turns out, the answer to ‘What am I going to do now?’ was simple. Stay (not that Jim had much choice in the matter, Ambassador Sarek was not the type of person to let things go).

--–

He hadn't seen much of The Ra’Shango whilst being led, by Sarek, towards his new quarters onboard the Vulcan research vessel and had all but fallen into bed after changing into the clothes he had been given. But, after being woken up by his nightmare, Jim never managed to fall back asleep. Even though he was bone-tired in a way he had never been before, he couldn’t let his guard down enough to slip back into sleep - and the noise didn’t help matters either.

His abilities had grown so strong over the past few years, and his shields so weak, that the usual dead space which surrounded most adult Vulcans was no longer quiet, and he could hear low-level murmurs from almost every single crewmember on the ship. Instead of sleeping, Jim curled up on the bed and stared into the blackness - oddly reminiscent of his first few months on Betazed. Only this time, there were no Betazoid Healers around to help him with his thinning shields and degrading mental landscape; no specially designed room to dampen his mental projection, to stop him from unintentionally influencing others; and no one to hear him crying out into the darkness of his room. For the first time in over a year, Jim tried to recall the training exercises Specialist Jina gave him - unfortunately to no success - and as much as he hated to say it… Jim needed help.

–--

Morning came eventually, according to the clock in his room, and Jim managed to drag himself out of bed and into the little attached bathroom that was off to one side. Inside, a real water shower greeted him and Jim felt like kissing the feet of the Vulcans for such a luxury. It had been years since Jim had had the pleasure of washing in real water, rather than the usual sonic showers found in space. Stripping from his clothes and standing under the hot water Jim wondered how Sarek managed to convince the captain to take on another passenger - a minor at that… and one with failing empathic AND telepathic shields. Arguably the ship was both the best and worst place to be for Jim; the best to receive help with his abilities (casually ignoring Betazed that is) and the worst if Jim lost control. Jim had no idea how well the crew's mental shielding was but hoped it was good enough that a repeat of unintentionally knocking out five healers wouldn't happen again.

Finally pulling himself out of the shower Jim bypassed the mirror and instead went to the pile of fresh clothes on the side of the sink, he didn't want to know what he looked like - he assumed it was bad and didn't need to know much more. In fact, when he and Sarek appeared on the transporter pad of The Ra’Shango he was surprised that instead of being taken straight to medical, he was escorted to empty quarters, handed a bunch of clothing and told to rest.

Fully dressed, Jim walked out of the bathroom and as he did a chime at the door sounded. As Jim made his way over to answer he slipped on his discarded shoes from the day before, tucking his laces into the sides rather than doing them up properly; outside, standing in the corridor, was a female Vulcan that Jim vaguely recognised (maybe the one from the transporter room?). As soon as the door opened she began to speak.

“Mr Kirk, provided you are ready I have been instructed to take you to the mess hall for breakfast.”

Having no good reason to decline Jim grabbed his PADD, took one final look around the room and followed her into the corridor where they walked side-by-side towards the turbolift.

As they walked down the brightly lit corridor, Jim realised that his almost constant migraine was still present. Pushing through the rapidly developing nausea, he managed to ask, “What’s your name?” without too much difficulty.

The Vulcan merely looked at Jim from the corner of her eyes, never faltering in her stride as she answered Jim's question. “I am Sublieutenant T’Kall.” No more information was forthcoming and Jim didn’t know why he was surprised, Vulcans weren’t known for their conversational skills after all. Though, Jim had to admit it was slightly refreshing. The last time he had spent significant time among people was the year he spent on Betazed. Unfortunately, Betazoids were known for being blunt and that year consisted of people massively oversharing their entire life stories. Whilst, at first, it was entertaining to find out that someone's Aunt got a little too drunk and revealed she and her bonded had invited not one, but two others, into their marriage bed and now they weren't sure who the father of their triplets was - much to the shock and outrage of both sets of grandparents (and well the whole family really, given that said Aunt was a quiet and well-mannered child) - it got old fast.

‘Though,’ Jim supposed, ‘it would be funny to tell T’Kall that story just to see what she does…’ Jim didn’t risk it though and instead held his breath and tried not to giggle at the memory - lest T’Kall advise the captain to throw Jim off the ship at the first opportunity for being ‘Illogical’.

Exiting the lift that Jim hadn’t realised he’d even entered the two turned right and found themselves walking through the doors to the mess hall; which, in all honesty, looked exactly the way Jim expected it to, a large, open room with windows lining the entire back wall. Replicators lined the left-hand side and what looked like a kitchen was to the right. In the middle were dozens of tables and chairs, about half of which were occupied by various crew members. Fortunately, no one turned to look at them, though Jim swore he felt a ripple of curiosity come from the room. He wasn’t too sure though, and the thought was shoved to the side in favour of the steadily growing migraine and nausea.

“Our chef has prepared plomeek broth and gespar for breakfast. However, if that is not to your liking you may use the replicators.”

Not feeling hungry and worried he may throw up anything too rich Jim made his way to the kitchen. Plomeek broth was known for being blander than white paint but at least he’d be able to stomach it and not vomit over some poor unsuspecting Vulcan’s shoes. Approaching the kitchen Jim took a breath and forcing his mind back to his childhood lessons he spoke in slightly stuttering Vulcan “May I have a bowl of Plomeek broth?” despite what Jim knew was an atrocious accent the cook behind the counter nodded once, picked up a bowl and turned towards the simmering pots of food to ladle fresh hot soup into the waiting bowl. Handing the now full bowl back to Jim the cook turned to get T’Kall a bowl as well. Waiting by the side of the kitchen until T’Kall had her bowl back, Jim cast his eyes back over the eating Vulcans. Apparently, his little stunt of speaking Vulcan had earned him some looks, though once he met their gazes they went back to whatever it was they were doing beforehand. Jim, for a moment, could have sworn he saw approval in their eyes - or maybe it was approval in their thoughts? Vulcans were known not to show emotional responses but, as any empath knew, they still felt, still had emotional responses and reactions, they just hid them behind mental walls lest the emotions overwhelm them. Jim, in particular, was good at slipping behind those walls and seeing what was hidden behind them.

With T’Kall’s bowl finally in hand, they made their way to an empty table by the windows. Once sat, T’Kall spoke once more.

“Forgive me, Ambassador Sarek did not mention you spoke Vulcan.”

“I spent some time… ” Jim paused, trying to think how he was going to speak about one of the worst times in his life without revealing too much “...off-world. There was a teacher there who taught me the basics. The rest I picked up travelling.”

After he answered, both of them lapsed into silence. The question had brought up bad memories for Jim and he was desperately trying not to think about the horrors of Tarsus, forcing himself to keep placing food in his mouth instead. T’Kall was also silent from her place across from him, Jim didn’t exactly know why, maybe just because she was Vulcan and determined there was nothing else to say at that moment in time.

Soon, without realising it, Jim finished his broth and both he and T’Kall silently picked up their empty bowls to return them to the kitchen. Walking towards the door T’Kall interrupted Jim’s spinning thoughts with a sentence he had hoped he’d never hear.

“Now that we have finished, I have been instructed to escort you to the Med-deck.”

‘Here we go’ Jim thought. Usually, he would try to get out of it. Argue that he was fine and there was no need. This was not usually. Throughout breakfast his migraine had been slowly getting worse, blank spots floated across his vision and his equilibrium was lost somewhere between the 6th and 7th bites of food. Jim, swaying slightly, stumbled his way to the door a step behind the Vulcan. Med-deck was four decks down, as T’Kall had informed him, but as soon as the turbolift came to a stop, Jim fell into blackness.

–----

Jim woke surrounded by wheat. For a moment he thought he was back on Tarsus but the bright blue sky made him doubt himself, the sky on Tarsus always seemed to hold a red tinge - almost like a warning not heeded. But the sky here was the bluest he’d ever seen, not a cloud anywhere in sight and the occasional flock of birds flying overhead. Crickets sounded from all around, the wheat stalks dancing in the gentle breeze, butterflies fluttering around the swaying stalks. As he looked around himself Jim could just about see wagons and tractors, more modern versions of those he regularly saw in Iowa all those years ago. Tall trees lined the very edges of the field and somehow Jim knew that a stream ran down the line of trees on his left, a trickle of water now but swelling to almost bursting in the coming rainy autumn months. Close to Jim, where he stood nearer to the bottom end of the field was a barn, its red and white walls visible despite the wheat. Red paint was peeling off the sides and a couple of windows looked smashed. Its run-down appearance showed it wasn’t used very often.

In the distance, on top of a hill, was a modest, old-style, farmhouse. White painted walls with exposed dark wooden beams, shutters open wide to let in the warm summer breeze, yellow curtains blowing out the open windows. A large wooden deck wrapped around the front of the house. When Jim squinted he could make out chairs and tables littering the front, an open barbeque off to one side. Ivy climbed up both sides of the house to wrap around the two opposing chimneys. Blue and pink flowers hung out of hanging baskets and window boxes, gently swaying in time with the wheat. As he stared, the front door opened and out walked a young man, if Jim had to guess he seemed to be in his late teens or early 20’s. The man had dark hair but unlike the rest of the porch, he seemed to be out of focus. Jim tried to look harder, squinting in the bright sunshine, but the image of the man faded even more, taking the surroundings with it as well. Just as Jim's vision faded completely, he could have sworn the man looked right at him.

–----

Beeping noises woke Jim next and the hazy details of the dream faded from his memory almost completely, he only really remembered a farmhouse but knew there was something important he was forgetting. Looking around Jim realised he was on a bed in the supposed Med-bay. Just as he was about to call out a Vulcan he assumed was a doctor appeared from around the partition on his left.

“Mr. Kirk I see that you are awake. If you will wait one moment I will contact Ambassador Sarek.” She spoke in Standard, probably not knowing Jim’s proficiency of the language and the fact it was unnecessary. Before Jim could even form a reply, the doctor disappeared back around the partition. Resigning himself to waiting, Jim looked at his surroundings. Sterile grey bulkheads greeted him in the other three directions, the white partition forming the fourth. Despite not being in a room it was quite private, clearly the end of a row of beds. A chair was placed on his right and the beeping was coming from a monitor above his head. Whilst his spoken Vulcan was quite proficient, his ability to read the language was almost non-existent, but despite not knowing what it said he could safely assume it was his vitals and even he could see that the gauges did not look good. Also on his left was a little bedside cabinet and on top of which sat his PADD, just as he was about to reach for it the doctor and Sarek appeared, once again speaking in Standard.

“James, it is good to see you awake. I apologise for the delay but as I have taken responsibility for you the doctor wished me to be present when she gave her assessment.”

Well, that answered that question then and no amount of charming was going to get him out of this one. Jim may be good at bullshitting his way through life but Vulcans were a different story. At his nod of understanding Sarek came to join Jim on his other side and both looked expectantly at the doctor.

“Thank you, Ambassador. Mr Kirk, if you will allow me to begin?” Nodding again Jim sat back and let the doctor speak.

“Physically, you are very malnourished and that has led to some damage to your internal organs, made worse by the fact this is a repeated situation,” Jim didn’t mean to but couldn’t help the flinch when she said that, Sarek raising an eyebrow off to his side “the damage can be easily fixed in due course but it will take some time for your body to recover.”

Looking down at the device in her hand the doctor took a small breath and continued as if she wasn’t destroying all his patched and broken walls.

“Your medical records showed no evidence of this, despite results showing you have been previously treated, so I can only infer that they have been deleted. Not to mention the fact that you are most definitely ¼ Betazoid and yet the files we have also do not mention that.”

Oh, how Jim wanted the ground to suddenly swallow him whole. Sarek, meanwhile, had raised his other eyebrow in response.

“Scans of your brain and neural functions showed that the nerves associated with your empathic abilities are damaged and as such your control over these abilities is compromised. Without knowing your medical history it is impossible to accurately know how bad the damage is and if it can be fully repaired. We can start you on a treatment designed to re-grow the affected neural pathways but it will take some time to develop the treatment to accommodate your list of allergies.”

‘Well, at least I didn’t tamper with that part’ Jim thought. His list of allergies was long, too long not to have questions asked but he didn’t dare alter them less someone tried to give him something he was allergic to when he was unconscious.

“Once the treatment has been administered it is my recommendation to start meditation to address your mental shielding. In the meantime, we can administer an emergency suppressor to stop the over-taxing of the remaining working pathways and to give them the best chance at recovery. Be aware that many find suppressors disconcerting due to the complete shut off from your abilities.”

At that point, the doctor stopped talking, clearly done with her assessment. Sitting on the bed, Jim considered his options and whether he was willing to reveal all his secrets to the Vulcans. Decision made, Jim slowly reached for the PADD on the cabinet and located the encrypted folder containing his complete, unfiltered medical record. Opening it, he hesitated briefly before handing it to the doctor.

Accepting the PADD and looking at the file the doctor spent a couple of minutes scrolling down the page “Thank you, Mr Kirk. This will be very helpful in ensuring we provide the best treatment for you. I will download this file to a secure terminal so that you may have your device back. I shall encrypt it so that only I may view it.” The doctor left to do just that and Jim was left alone with Sarek.

To his side, Sarek stood in silence for a moment, collecting his thoughts. “It will be a difficult journey James, but you may stay on The Ra’Shango for as long as needed.” With that, Sarek sat down on the chair beside the bed, pulled out his own PADD and the two lapsed into a comfortable silence.

Chapter Text

“To improve your mental defences, you must first be able to identify what you are defending. You said that your mental landscape was the ocean, correct?”

Five weeks later, after undergoing treatment to heal his neural pathways, Jim had been cleared to start meditation. As such, he found himself sitting cross-legged on a pillow in Sarek’s quarters with a candle in front of him, its flame gently flickering. Sarek himself sat similarly on the other side of the candle, the lights in the room were dimmed and the sound of gentle waves was coming through the room's speakers. For the past few weeks, Jim had felt uneasy, the emergency suppressors had made everything quiet and Jim didn't realise how much he relied on his abilities until suddenly they weren't there any more. It was disconcerting in a way he didn't expect and he was eager to start work so he could be taken off of them.

Sarek’s voice floated gently to him in the peacefulness of his quarters. “Close your eyes and imagine yourself floating on that ocean, imagine the smell of the sea, the way the waves flow around you. Imagine the rolling waves throwing up droplets of water, and how it feels for them to land on your skin. Imagine the breeze of the wind, the sunlight streaming down from above, perhaps there are even animals flying or swimming around you.”

‘For a Vulcan that sounds awfully poetic.’ Jim thought.

“Now imagine the thing you are floating on. Describe it to me.”

Jim didn't immediately answer. He sat, trying to imagine what Sarek was describing but instead of the calm waves and bright sunshine he was supposed to imagine he saw a black sky, thunder clouds blotting out the sun and all its light. Massive waves rolled past Jim, threatening to throw him into the sea, the sea which was no longer a bright blue but black and unending. Unknown to Jim the candle in front of him started flickering violently, a sign of his distress.

“Calm yourself, James. Tell me what you are seeing so that I may help.”

Taking a breath Jim started to speak, describing the hellish nature his landscape had taken on, the lighting cracking down from the sky, the waves making him feel sick, the water splashing into his face, the salty water making his eyes burn.

Sarek’s steady voice came to him, piercing the chaos surrounding him “Imagine a wind, a strong, fierce wind, blowing away the rain clouds and leaving only blue skies behind.”

The wind came, a strong powerful wind high up in the sky, its force was too high up to touch Jim but it was able to blow away the storm clouds in one great gust.

“Good, now calm the sea, the waves slowly gentling until only the smallest roll exists.”

This took longer, the sea was unwilling to calm down no matter what Jim did. He imagined the wind coming back, gentler and lower this time, forcing the waves to calm into almost stillness. In front of him, the candle flame calmed significantly, still flickering but not the wild dance from before.

“With no rain and thunder clouds, the sea turns blue again; fish start to swim up from their hiding places deep down below.”

From below the boat Jim was sitting in, he could see the fish rising from below. Dozens of them were swimming towards the surface, a rainbow of colours, most of them were small but the occasional large one popped up to the surface, he even saw a sea turtle. Jim didn’t know fish species but they all looked beautiful to him. The candle stilled, completely calm.

“Now, describe the thing you are floating on.”

–--

Along with meditation, Jim was also given lessons. At first, it was just to catch up (and to keep him out of trouble). Tarsus had no strict curriculum and the Betazoid healers had more to worry about than his education. Then, once he left Betazoid, he didn't see much point in keeping up his education. Instead, Jim spent the next three years drifting from ship to ship, planet to planet - exploring space like never before. He still read, still learned, and picked up new languages as he went but other parts of his education were seriously lacking.

The plan was just to get him up to speed with the rest of his peers. So that if he ever returned to Earth he would be able to fit right back in. But, well, Jim’s nothing if not an overachiever, and he not only burned his way through catching up but also managed to surpass most university students as well. Two years into his stay on The Ra’Shango he’d already completed three degrees remotely and was halfway through a master's.

Eventually, his teacher just handed him an unlocked PADD that had unrestricted access to the Vulcan Science Academy’s reading lists and let him do whatever he wanted - assigning assessments on whatever topic Jim found most intriguing. There were practical lessons as well, the Captain had allowed Jim to work with various crew members over the years, and whilst Vulcan ships were quite different to Earth ships Jim loved it all the more. Engineering was his favourite, and the head of the department often complimented Jim on his knowledge and assistance within the department.

Sarek had left a little over a year into Jim’s stay onboard The Ra’Shango, his duties as Ambassador meaning he couldn't stay. He’d offered to take Jim with him, but Jim had declined, wanting instead to stay onboard the vessel and explore space. Sarek called every week to check up on him though; he’d also requested to be kept informed of Jim’s well-being. Jim imagined what it would have been like had his own parents shown this much interest in him, he wondered if he would have made the same decisions and ended up in the same place. From his talks with Sarek, Jim knew he had a son and tried to push down the jealousy he felt towards him.

“I must say I am pleased that you are doing so well in your studies. Major Sokk reports you are maintaining your meditation well and Subaltern Saek compliments your knowledge and dedication to his lessons. I believe he is considering giving you a recommendation for the Vulcan Science Academy, after all, you’ve read most of the texts required for the first-year classes.” Here Sarek paused, before continuing more slowly. “But I see that you will not take up his offer.”

Jim was startled, for a race used to hiding their emotions they sure had the uncanny ability to read a room (when they wanted to) “I just…I feel restless. I can’t be here much longer.”

“I understand.”

“You do?”

“James, I knew from the moment I took you onboard The Ra’Shango that you would not stay indefinitely. I am surprised you stayed as long as you did. You are a wandering spirit James, you belong in the stars on your own path - not one forged for you by others. If you wish to leave I will not stop you. I only ask that you take care of yourself.”

“I promise.”

Once again Jim thought, ‘awfully poetic for a Vulcan.’

–--

After a few months of deliberating the decision to leave, Jim finally left The Ra’Shango on the third anniversary of his arrival.

For the next two years he wondered about space, and for two years Jim, mostly, kept his promise to Sarek. Only twice had he needed medical attention - and one of those was definitely not his fault!

Then, as all things do, it came to an end. After almost eight years travelling in space, Jim, now 22, finally made his way back to Earth. He wouldn’t say home, as most would - Jim was born in space, and space was his home - Earth was merely a place that held ghosts from his past - ghosts that it was time to face.

Chapter Text

Earth was more painful than Jim expected it to be. He had expected it to be bad - but not like this. His first visit was to Iowa, he wanted to see if anything had changed since he was a child, if his life there had left any trace on the people, he also wanted to see the fields of his childhood. Something about the thought of wheat stalks caused his brain to itch, a memory just on the edge of his mind, something he knew he had to remember but couldn’t.

Whatever he needed to remember wasn’t here though, all the fields did was make him sick, their swaying golden stalks transforming into rotten plants before his eyes. His vision took on a red hugh that he damn well knew wasn’t right and the smell of rot and tang of blood clogged his nose. Jim moved on, barely hesitating before walking up the long driveway to the house he used to live in, the memories of Tarsus shoved onto a red and white boat before being sent off into the vast ocean of his mental landscape. This house wasn't home, it had stopped being home the day his mother left for space and his stepfather had pushed him down the stairs - he was 4.

Jim knocked on the door, the once blue paint was peeling away, leaving the stained brown underneath showing. The rest of the house didn’t look much better, with cracked windows and empty window boxes - it had obviously fallen into disrepair. There was no answer at the door even though Jim knew there was someone inside. During his stay onboard The Ra’Shango the Vulcans had taught Jim a lot about his abilities, because of that, Jim knew there was someone inside the house - he could sense their mental presence. You didn’t see a mental presence as such, it was more like a bright light on closed eyelids, you were aware of its presence but only in the general sense. Multiple people tended to feel like an array of light, each person taking on a different colour. If there were too many people in one location it would all just jumble into one and Jim would have to concentrate to separate the individual signatures. If he pushed further, he’d be able to identify who it was more specifically and even pick up on surface thoughts, but such a push without permission would be breaking the laws of empathic and telepathic abilities. After knocking twice more, the sound of stumbling footsteps made it to his ears and the door was wrenched open.

As it turned out, only Frank was home, his mother was once again flying off into the black, leaving only a drunk husband and falling-apart house behind. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t invite Jim in; he just made him stand on the porch, throwing insults at him, spittle flying from his mouth to land on Jim’s shirt. It was disgusting. After the fourth ‘You’re not MY son!’ he’d finally had enough and mid-rant he turned and walked away, vowing never to return. Nothing had changed, Jim didn’t know why he thought it would have.

As he walked back down the driveway, he heard the front door slam shut and hoped to God that Frank hadn’t followed him out. Fortunately, Jim could feel Frank's mental presence moving away from him, the light dimming the further he walked away. Clearly Frank was too drunk to bother beating Jim like he did when he was a kid. Or maybe he realised that this time, he could fight back.

Instead of moving on to his next destination, Jim decided to find a bar. Iowa was shit when it came to food shops - everyone relying on growing their own - but at least you could find a decent bar. Plans changed, Jim hopped on his bike and made his way to the edge of town where he knew an old bar that was located at the top of the hill. Arriving behind the bar, he could just about see Riverside Shipyard off in the distance, shuttles flying around despite the growing darkness. As he parked, he could see and feel a large crowd of people, more than he was expecting. As he sat watching the door to the bar, Jim saw what looked like five guys in some kind of uniform walk out, clearly all of them were drunk. Looking back at the shipyard and putting the pieces together Jim realised that they had to be cadets. Smiling to himself at all the trouble he could cause, Jim hopped off his bike and made his way into the bar. Empathic abilities had their uses after all. It meant that Jim knew exactly which buttons to press to get what he wanted and what he wanted right now was a drink and a fight. And seen as no one knew he was part Betazoid, they were never on their guard around him. Their emotions just leaked through non-existent shields making them all the easier for him to manipulate.

‘Maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea after all.’

–--

‘This was definitely a bad idea.’

I mean he’s an empath for God’s sake - he knew she wasn’t interested in him that way - in fact, it was rather obvious someone else had left their mental signature on her, staking their claim. ‘Interesting, I wonder if she knows?’ But she was looking for someone to talk to. And, well, Jim only really knew how to have conversations with barely disguised flirting - sue him. The resulting fight was embarrassing, had Jim not been drunk out of his mind then maybe he wouldn’t have ended up getting his face bashed in as he was being held over a table. The interruption by what looked like a senior member of Starfleet was both a blessing and a curse though…

The guy sat in front of him - the so-called Captain Pike - and radiated smugness like a broken faucet. Jim thought Starfleet captains had to have mental training just in case they came across an empathic or telepathic species, apparently that training was either a myth or completely useless. Pike may put on a show of confidence but his emotions didn’t reflect that at all and Jim was pissed. Who the hell was this guy to tell him he was wasting his life? Jim probably had more degrees and intelligence than this guy’s entire bridge crew - that was probably an overstatement but he didn’t care, he just wanted to wipe the smirk off this guy’s face when he realised he poked a sleeping bear. And damn it did Jim want to be back in space so bad - what was three years ‘four years can go screw itself’ in the face of unending space exploration?

–--

Living up to his ability not to think things through, Jim started to regret his decision as he boarded the shuttle the next morning, the atmosphere was tense and he could feel anger radiating from the guys from the night before. Despite the eye-roll from the cadet he’d been flirting with, ‘Really must get her name’, she was impressed he was there - just unwilling to show it to him. Jim, he could admit to himself, was also impressed that he hadn’t bolted after slowly coming to the realisation that maybe he should have thought this one through.

All thoughts and doubts left him when he heard the commotion from across the shuttle, a guy saying he wanted to stay in the bathroom for the whole flight. Jim couldn’t help but feel he knew the guy - doctor apparently - though, for the life of him, he couldn’t remember why or where. As the doctor sat next to him, Jim felt a wave of despair overcome him; grief, anger and fear mingling together in one colossal wave of emotion. Whatever had happened to this guy was bad. Jim barely noticed the man continue to talk, he barely heard himself respond about the safety of the shuttle either. All he knew was that he had to help this person, wanted - no needed - to take away the hurt he was feeling and replace it with joy. The whole shuttle ride Jim kept up his nervous rambling, sipping from the offered flask. The other cadets were slowly starting to become irritated, but Jim knew that if he stopped his neighbour would fall apart. Knew with a certainty, that despite the protests coming from his mouth, he was secretly grateful for the mouthy kid with blood on his shirt distracting him from the overwhelming fear of being in space (not that they were actually in space yet but Jim guessed space and flight were one and the same to this guy).

Jim only stopped his rambling once the shuttle had landed. He could feel waves of gratitude coming from the man sitting to his side - ‘Bones,’ he thought - and felt a deep sense of pride. He’d prevented him from having a full-blown panic attack, and for some reason, Jim felt the need to continue watching over him.

They were the last two to leave the shuttle and as Jim watched Bones walk away, mumbling about not being assigned a dorm yet, he knew what he needed to do. Vulcans might preach rule-keeping but damn if they didn’t teach Jim how to safely cover his tracks after his less-than-legal dives into supposed encrypted systems…

–--

“Well fancy seeing you here!”

“Dammit Jim what did you do?” because he did do something and Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy was no idiot.

“You mean you don’t wanna dorm with me?” Jim put on his most put-out face “Well I mean if you want to be lumped with some other first-year cadet then I guess I should leave…” Jim trailed off knowing full well that his future best friend didn’t want to room with anyone - much less a first-year. Out of the two options, being with Jim was much preferred.

“Fine, but I want the bed next to the window!”

Jim smiled to himself and pushed away the niggling feeling that something wasn’t quite right.

‘Shit.’ Jim suddenly thought ‘How the hell am I gonna tell Sarek about this?’

Chapter Text

Before classes had even started, Jim was up to his eyeballs in work. To make good on his promise of three years he had to cram not only four years' worth of Academy work into three, but also three summers’ worth of extra credit. The actual course itself Jim wasn’t too concerned with, it was the summer credit he was going to struggle with. Exams for his core modules could be taken anytime but, ideally, Jim needed the extra credits associated with taking temporary placements on ships - and those only came up occasionally, usually during the summer break. Instead, Jim would have to get those extra credits by helping out faculty members and taking exams from the Engineering, Medical and Communications tracks.

As such, Jim found himself in his and Bones’ shared room (the one Bones begrudgingly accepted after all), surrounded by PADDs, two weeks before classes had even begun, with half the campus still empty of cadets, studying for five upcoming exams. Fortunately, Captain Pike had contacted him earlier to say that all of Jim's records from when he stayed onboard The Ra’Shango had been verified and they’d passed him on almost all of the first-year courses and ⅓ of the second-year courses without ever having to take the exams themselves; he’d also been awarded his first extra credits from the Engineering track for his PhD work in Warp Core Construction. Jim knew that Pike had questions; he could see it in Pike’s eyes, hear it in his voice and feel the curiosity radiating off of him, but he was good enough to wait until Jim was finished his exams before he was pulled into a face-to-face meeting with him. And damn Jim couldn’t wait for that meeting, wanted to see if the guy’s smugness had worn off yet. Hopefully, if he passed these five exams, the rest of his first-year and another ⅓ of his second-year courses would be complete and he could relax a little. He’d also be able to get rid of the low-level headache he’d developed from stressing out so much.

Speaking of relaxing, Jim looked in envy behind himself. Bones was currently lying on his bed (the one by the window after all), reading, of all things, a paperback book.

“Jim, if you don’t take a break you’re gonna burn out before term even starts.”

“I have an exam in Theoretical Warp Dynamics at 07:00 tomorrow. I can’t take a break.”

His back was mostly turned to Bones but Jim just knew that he was rolling his eyes at him. It had only been a week but Jim felt as though he’d known Bones his entire life. Being in such close proximity to each other meant that he was becoming attuned to Bones’ specific mental signature. More often than not he could pinpoint exactly what he was feeling without even trying, sometimes knowing what he was going to say before he even said it - it was something of a grey area when it came to the law. Jim wasn’t actively using his abilities on Bones but was picking up on information he had no right to know and certainly no permission to know either.

‘Maybe I should ask Sarek about that one?’ As soon as the thought came, Jim dismissed it. He did not want to start that particular conversation with Sarek because Jim just knew it would be uncomfortable for both of them. As it was, Jim still cringed every time he thought about his earlier conversation with Sarek, when he admitted what had happened with Frank and Pike (not to mention what had happened in the shuttle) and Sarek had a look of pure incredability on his face. In short - Jim broke a Vulcan and it made him feel unsettled.

“And if you don’t take a break all that studying is gonna leak out your brain through your ears.”

“Man, that is so not how it works, I thought you were a doctor?”

“Yeah haha wh-” Bones stopped abruptly and Jim could hear him get off the bed and walk towards him, concern dripping from his voice and emotions “Jim your nose is bleeding.”

Reaching up Jim wiped his fingers under his nose and sure enough, they were coated in blood; pinching his nose he cursed “Oh hell, not again!” and leaned away from the table to stop him getting blood on his work.

Bones paused before turning back around, presumably to go for his tricorder - you know, the one he shouldn’t technically have. “You get nosebleeds a lot?”

“Yeah, all the time, don’t worry about it! Probably just cause I’m in a new place, Freshers Flu and all that.” Dodging past Bones and the tricorder that will definitely pick up on the fact he’s part Betazoid, Jim made his way to the bathroom to clean up, shouting through the open door as he went. “Maybe I will take a break, you wanna go see what the bars are like around here?”

Bones initially said nothing, probably unwilling to push too far when their friendship was so new. “Yeah, sure, why not? Being cooped up in this godforsaken hovel is giving me a headache.” Jim hoped the banging he could hear was Bones putting the tricorder away. He did not want to talk to the southern grump about his very forged medical records. He had the feeling it wouldn’t go well.

Taking a minute to centre himself, Jim breathed deeply through his now clear nose and silently reinforced his shields, adding a layer of fluffy clouds to protect his mental landscape. Feeling much calmer than before, Jim walked out of the bathroom; fortunately, Bones had indeed put the tricorder away and was sitting on his bed, putting on his shoes. Silently, he congratulated himself. ‘Crisis averted!’

–--

‘Four down, one to go!’

His last exam was the Wednesday before classes started and Jim could feel himself slowly unravelling. The once silent dorms were now bustling with cadets and Jim didn’t realise how much more taxing it would be on his mental state. He’d been surrounded by more people before, but you don’t pick up much when those people were just passing and when he stayed with the Vulcans they had their own mental shields. The longer you spent with people who didn’t have shields, the more attuned you got to their mental signatures and the easier it was to pick up on their emotions and murmured thoughts. Betazoids (and other empathic/telepathic species) were supposed to be in Special Housing on campus; those buildings were designed to dampen the input and output of mental signatures. No such damping existed in the main dorms and Jim was beginning to doubt himself; ‘maybe I should have notified them...’ As soon as the thought formed he dismissed it, it might not be a problem for him specifically but people would surely work out that one of his parents lied on their Starfleet record and when people found out it was their supposed hero George Kirk it would open a galactic can of worms that Jim just didn't want to deal with.

So, he did something reckless.

Emergency suppressants were, obviously, for emergencies only and were highly controlled due to their addictive nature…but Jim knew there was a 3rd-year cadet that dealt them out to anyone who asked. How he’d not been arrested yet he didn’t know, but didn’t particularly care when the drug took effect and he was floating somewhere between awake and asleep. ‘Just one, just this once’

And it was just the one, the complete loss of his abilities was even more disturbing this time around than it was when he lived onboard The Ra’Shango, but it allowed Jim the quiet he needed to study and complete his final exam in record time. He was so fast in fact that the instructor overseeing him had to double-check that he had answered all the questions before he let him go. By then, the suppressant had started to wear off and he could feel how astounded the man felt that Jim had finished the exam so quickly.

As Jim predicted, Pike didn’t waste any time trying to pull him into a meeting. As soon as he walked out of the building from his last exam, his PADD beeped from an incoming message, asking Jim to meet Pike in his office. Coming down from the suppressant he took, a headache building from emotions suddenly returning to batter his shields, Jim considered ignoring him. Still, he ultimately decided that that would be a terrible idea. He did, however, manage to arrange said meeting for another day, citing that he was exhausted from his exams and needed sleep. Pike, mercifully, agreed and instead requested his presence Friday morning.

–--

As it turned out, Jim should have just gone to the meeting Wednesday evening and suffered the consequences. Not only did he not particularly sleep Wednesday or Thursday night, but throughout Thursday, he relentlessly worried, much to Bones’ annoyance. All he could think about were worse-case scenarios, starting and ending with Pike figuring out he was part Betazoid and getting kicked out of the Academy.

Friday morning saw Jim once again fidgeting, Bones had kicked him out of their dorm at sunrise “All your pacing’s giving me a migraine!” and he had spent his time wandering around the grounds before pacing in front of Pike’s door thirty minutes before their scheduled meeting. When Pike finally opened his door to admit Jim, he was about ready to throw up.

“Take a seat, Kirk.”

Jim did as he said and for a moment they just sat looking at each other. The minutes stretched on and it took all of his focus to keep breathing normally. From his posture - straight-backed, sitting on the edge of the chair - you would think that Jim was in some monumental trouble, just waiting for the interrogation to begin. Opposingly, Pike was the picture of calm, leaning back in his chair, fiddling with a stylus in his hands. Jim tried, but couldn’t get a read on Pike. His own nervousness was muddling his thoughts and messing with his abilities. There were a thousand things Pike could want to discuss with him and Jim didn’t know how to answer nearly all of them.

Eventually, Pike spoke, “Kirk, when I told you you were wasting your life, why didn’t you laugh in my face?”

Thrown, Jim could only blink in surprise. “Sir?”

“Your education record, kid. I don’t think a single first-year has ever walked through these doors with five degrees, 2 master’s, a PhD, a handful of critically acclaimed reports, and recommendations from no less than four Vulcans of high rank.”

Jim didn’t know what to say. Of all the things he imagined Pike to say - that wasn’t one of them (though a little part of him remembered that smug look from the bar and relished that it had now turned into outright astonishment).

“So again, why didn’t you laugh in my face in that bar?”

Jim, brain still rebooting, merely gave a nervous laugh before replying “Well, I mean you were kind of right Sir. All I’d been doing for two years was travelling and there’s only so many interesting places you can go to without breaking galactic law.”

Silence greeted him, and a wave of disbelief made him look up from his stare at Pike’s desk. Pike was staring at Jim in utter disbelief, mouth open and stylus held still in his hand. His carefree attitude paused mid-motion.

“You mean to tell me that all those qualifications you have, you achieved them before you were 20?” Pike’s tone was something Jim had never experienced before and he suddenly felt uncomfortable. Jim knew he was smart - a damn right genius if you asked him - but never before had anyone acknowledged as much so openly and it left a slimy feeling in the pit of his stomach and a ringing noise in his head.

Uncomfortable at the emotions coming from Pike, Jim could only say “Er, well, most of them, yes Sir.” before returning to staring at the desk.

Minutes passed and he could feel the waves of astonishment and disbelief slowly fading into more manageable levels as Pike got a handle on himself. Jim eventually heard Pike move and glanced up, something in the air changing. No longer was Pike slouched in his chair but sitting upright, elbows on the desk and hands cradling his chin. Dread welled up inside of him and he felt seriousness echo from Pike.

“There is one other thing Kirk.”

Jim held his breath.

“Starfleet Medical sent me a message regarding your medical file. Apparently, there’s a gap in them from when you were 13.”

‘Oh no’ thought Jim.

“Well, actually, there are two gaps, the second is from your time onboard the Vulcan research vessel The Ra’Shango. Starfleet Medical reached out to the doctor who served onboard at the time. She informed them that there was nothing in the file they needed to know and that the best they would get from her was a summary. They weren't too happy, but they let that one go. The first gap though…” Pike trailed off, staring at Jim in contemplation, seriousness blending with concern “that one they’re more concerned about.”

Jim damn well knew why there was a gap in his file, it was when he was on Tarsus and the resulting stay on Betazed, but he sure as hell wasn’t opening that can of worms today, or hopefully ever. He also silently thanked the Vulcan doctor who served onboard The Ra’Shango (though he highly doubted she spoke to them exactly like that), Starfleet Medical might not have been able to fill in the blanks fully but they would be a hell of a lot closer to the truth if they had access to the treatment he received on the ship. All it would take is one doctor to mention a possible famine to explain the malnutrition and puzzle pieces would start to click into place. From reading Bones’ course summary Jim knew that Tarsus was a mandatory lecture for all medical staff - something to do with mass casualty protocol - and he was already dreading Bones’ participation - he didn’t need Medical also poking around.

Pike was expecting an answer, but Jim didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know if silence told him everything instead. That red and white boat that housed all of his memories of Tarsus was slowly bobbing its way back into his mental landscape, and he was desperate for it to float away again, the waves surrounding him rolled and crashed in response to his turmoil.

Jim was startled from his thoughts when Pike sighed, the long drawn-out sigh of someone who didn’t get what they wanted. His concern for Jim was slowly ramping up, this time mingling with worry.

“OK Kirk, I’ll tell them not to bother. For now. But if it becomes relevant I need you to tell me, do you understand?”

Not trusting himself to speak, he merely nodded his head once.

“OK Kirk. Dismissed.”

And with that, Jim wasted no time and fled to the safety of his dorm.

–--

Classes started a couple of days later and Jim could feel the regret creeping in again. He was taking so many classes that it didn’t leave much time for a social life and the meeting with Pike lived rent free in his head. His concentration was also wavering, things that he knew were easy were suddenly ten times harder, it wasn’t so bad in the dorm anymore - he’d gotten used to everyone's mental signatures and could mostly block them out - but in class, he could feel himself one step away from a nosebleed and a migraine. He wasn’t used to being around so many people and half of his attention in class was on making sure he wasn’t overwhelmed by everyone's emotions. ‘Seriously Starfleet should look into basic shields for all its cadets as a courtesy for everyone else.’

What also didn’t help was how sick Jim got with the incoming Freshers Flu. Not only did he manage to get it himself, but it seemed half the building did as well; the backlash of so many people feeling ill meant that Jim barely slept and in turn, made him worse. Bones wasn’t much help either - with so many people sick, it meant that he was working at the clinic later and later and was almost constantly complaining of a headache. That headache then ricocheted back to Jim making him feel even worse - no matter what medication Bones dosed him up with, grumbling all the while about the long list of Jim’s allergies.

Barely three weeks into class, Jim finally had enough, and the blood dripping from his nose was proof of that. It was the fifth nosebleed since the term had begun, and people were starting to ask uncomfortable questions, questions he didn’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole. The first couple of nosebleeds he’d managed to wave away, but five was pushing it. For a moment Jim thought about telling Pike, or at least asking Sarek to do it for him, but instead, he downed a couple of suppressants.

Chapter Text

Despite telling himself he was fine, Jim was most certainly not fine.

One week he’d be in classes, soaking up information like a sponge and completing coursework in record time; the next, he’d be slaving away at homework, too tired to understand the material in front of him, with sleep slowly becoming a distant memory. The nosebleeds had not stopped, but they had slowed down significantly - he’d not had to run out of a lecture for weeks now - but the downside was that Jim had had an almost constant migraine and Bones’ complaining about his clinic shifts had not helped.

It was the suppressants. Jim knew that. Knew how stupid he was being, but every time he tried to stop the thumping emotions from everyone in the building assaulted him. The last time he’d tried to curb his habit, he’d woken up on the bathroom floor with blood dripping from his ears and nose ‘Thank God Bones had a double shift at the clinic’ and Jim had managed to clean himself up before he got home. Jim floated through the weeks in a daze, not realising that had he been more aware of his surroundings he would have seen all the looks he was getting, even from his professors. Hell, if he hadn’t been cut off from other people's emotions he would have felt the concern dripping from them wherever he went. But then again, if he wasn’t on suppressants those concerns wouldn’t be there in the first place…It was a nasty little cycle Jim didn’t even realise he’d entered.

By the time November rolled around, Jim had given up on trying to stop his dangerous habit; soon enough though he wouldn't have a choice.

--–

“Damn it all to hell!”

Despite his grandmother’s insistence that Leonard come home for Christmas, Leonard himself had reservations, mainly due to his roommate (though the thought of trying to play nice with a family that no longer cared for him was certainly a factor - and no, Leonard was not thinking about how that happened). The only reason he had even considered going home this year was for his grandmother. She was the one person who still treated him like family and had apparently threatened everyone into playing nice during the holidays this year. But Leonard still had his doubts, and the universe was trying to back them up. At least that was the only explanation he had for why his transport was now three hours late, and the migraine he’d had since the middle of his last clinic shift wasn’t responding to anything he took.

As he stood at the terminal waiting for more information on his transport, Leonard’s mind drifted to his roommate, an increasingly common occurrence as of late. Jim had been off since he had announced he was going home for Christmas, the look on his face when he told him had made Leonard almost cancel the whole thing then and there. But Jim had convinced him he was fine and that he shouldn't waste the opportunity to go home, Leonard couldn’t get the look on Jim’s face out of his head though, how the genuine little smile he had turned into the grin he gave at bars when his heart wasn’t really in it (the grin that signified either that a fight was about to happen, or that Jim was about to disappear for hours on end without explanation).

And that wasn’t the only thing off about Jim. When he first saw the kid in that shuttle, he could have sworn he knew him. At the time he didn’t think much of it, he was too busy trying not to vomit on the guy's shoes, but after they became roommates, ‘How the hell did that happen?’, Leonard couldn't stop thinking about it. Nothing he came up with answered his nagging questions, and eventually he’d just chalked it up to Jim’s charm. ‘God knows the kid could charm the pants off even the worst people.’ Jim's behaviour from then on only got more confusing; the refusal to see a medic that wasn’t him (and even then that was a hassle) and the panic he had every time a tricorder was brought out, not to mention the avoidance and subject change whenever he was asked about his childhood. It was textbook abuse but Leonard had the overwhelming suspicion that that wasn’t even half the truth. Then, most recently, were the mood swings.

In short, Jim Kirk was a puzzle that Leonard McCoy just couldn't work out.

An announcement from the speakers broke him out of his musings.

“Notice to all passengers. Due to the weather, all transports have been cancelled. I repeat: All transports have been cancelled. We are sorry for any inconvenience.”

“Well hell.” ‘I guess the universe didn’t want me to go home then.’

Leonard (he refused to call himself Bones - even though the nickname had spread like wildfire across campus) decided enough was enough. Clearly Christmas at home was a bad idea and he wasn’t in the mood to try and find an alternate route. Between the weather, the cancellation and the migraine, Leonard was well and truly done.

Picking up his things and walking out of the building, Leonard managed to find a shuttlecar to take him back to his dorm. It was late, and he hoped to God that Jim was home and safely in bed. He did not want to be worried about the kid out in this weather but also didn’t want his insistent questions on why Leonard wasn’t halfway to Georgia by now. No, all he wanted was to get back, fall into bed and sleep for a solid nine hours.

That wasn’t what he got at all.

--–

Leonard knew something was wrong before he even stepped into the building. Everything appeared normal: The lights were on in a handful of dorms, the security officer in the lobby greeted him with a smile and a nod, and the door to his and Jim's dorm was still locked from when he left four and a half hours ago. But deep down, Leonard knew something was wrong, and the still steadily growing migraine confirmed it.

Opening the door, Leonard half expected the place to look trashed, but everything still looked as it usually did: the chaotic mess of Jim’s PADDs was still on the table, the small kitchen so clean you could tell it was barely used, and the blankets that littered the dorm all looked to be present and accounted for. Once he had dumped his luggage on the sofa though, he spotted what the problem was.

Moving from the door to the sofa meant that Leonard could see past Jim’s bed into the open doorway of the bathroom - to where Jim was lying unconscious on the floor. Only years of working in a hospital stopped Leonard from freezing and he immediately ran to grab his med kit (the one he insisted on keeping in the dorm due to Jim’s penchant for not going to the clinic when needed).

As he ran towards the door, with medkit in hand, Leonard could see more and more of Jim and his dread grew. When he finally reached the open door Leonard stopped and assessed the sight in front of him, ignoring the pain in his head in favour of helping his best friend. From the sofa, he could only see the back of Jim’s head as he lay on the floor but being closer made Leonard realise that Jim was also covered in blood. He sank to his knees by Jim's head and started running the tricorder over him. The blood appeared to be coming from his nose and ears. Leonard knew that Jim suffered from nosebleeds (despite the fact he tried to hide it) but he had never seen one this bad before and the blood dripping from Jim’s ears was sending alarm bells ringing in his head. Fortunately, whatever had happened had left Jim lying on his side. If he’d been lying on his back Leonard suspected he’d be coming home to a much worse situation, one in which Jim had choked on his own blood. Pulling his eyes away from Jim’s face Leonard focused on the readings coming from the tricorder.

‘Low BP. Not surprising.’

‘Low core body temp. Also not surprising.’

‘No external wounds. Good.’

‘No signs of head injury. Good.’

‘High psilosynine levels. Not goo-’ “Wait what?”

Frantically Leonard checked the readings again, murmuring the results to himself as if that would change what they said “High psilosynine levels and an underactive paracortex.”

For a moment all Leonard could do was stare at the tricorder, his mind unable to comprehend what he was seeing. The pain in his head was worse now and he hoped to God that he wouldn’t pass out right when Jim needed him most.

Eventually, a suspicion formed in his mind, “Oh God Jim.” Leonard fiddled with the device in his hand, changing some settings to scan for DNA, and passed it over Jim again. Once the readings came up he was almost speechless and whispered his findings aloud, barely believing them himself “You’re part Betazoid…”

A pause. A moment.

“Shit!” Leonard was glad that most of the dorm had gone for Christmas, as his curse could probably be heard throughout half the building. As it was, Leonard half expected the security guard on the front door to burst in at any moment.

The readings made a hell of a lot more sense now. Jim was part Betazoid and had, if Leonard was interpreting his neurotransmitter levels accurately, been taking illegal suppressants, suppressants that had stopped working and left Jim utterly defenceless to the emotions of those around him. Now armed with more information, Leonard felt confident that a call to Medical wasn’t yet needed. Emphasis on the ‘yet’. He’d seen Jim’s file and damn well knew that it said nothing about his heritage, clearly there was more going on in this situation. Despite wanting nothing more than to get Jim under observation at Medical, he knew he had to tread carefully. Jim would wake up eventually and would never trust him again if Leonard spilt this particular secret unless absolutely necessary.

Loading up his hypospray, he hoped he was making the right decision.

--–

The first thing Leonard did was inject Jim with the counter-hypo for the suppressants. Whilst he wasn’t exactly sure which version of the drug Jim had taken, they all used the same counter-drug and he couldn't do anything to help Jim until the suppressant was completely out of his bloodstream. Ideally, he would have liked to be in an isolation room that blocked external emotional influence, but he couldn’t do that without letting Medical know exactly why he needed to use one and he’d already committed to doing this without their help. The other option was to overwhelm Jim’s empathy with one singular mental signature, something he’d only just learnt about a week before in one of his lectures. Damn did he hate having to share courses with kids much younger than him but right now he was nothing but grateful that Starfleet had a module on ‘How to deal with Empathic and Telepathic patients in make-shift environments’. Leonard was also extremely grateful that it was the holidays and most of the building was empty, even a handful of distant mental signatures could be overwhelming in Jim’s fragile state.

Thinking back to what he learned, Leonard placed his hand on the back of Jim’s neck. The information from his lecture said that physical contact with one person could be just as good as an entirely quiet environment, as it focused the patients' thoughts on one thing rather than trying to interpret multiple things. All Leonard had to do was stay in physical contact with Jim and remain calm. Why he chose to hold Jim’s neck he didn’t know; it would have been much easier to hold his wrist, but something seemed to pull him to Jim’s neck. Keeping an eye on the tricorder, Leonard ran through his next steps. Once the suppressant had been neutralised he would have to get Jim somewhere more comfortable. Fortunately, despite Jim’s teasing, Leonard was quite fit (you had to be to do what Leonard did) and Jim’s bed wasn’t too far away. Afterwards, he would try and stabilise Jim’s neurotransmitter levels, a task that would be difficult as he had no idea what the normal levels looked like and would have to improvise. Despite knowing it wasn’t worth it, Leonard looked over Jim’s medical file again, hoping there would be some clue in it that could help him treat him. Nothing he found was useful, all the available information he’d already memorised (and damn did those gaps look a lot more suspicious now). Looking at the tricorder again Leonard could see that the counter-drug had worked and started the task of moving Jim without losing his hold on him.

Once on the bed, with only one slip away from skin-on-skin contact (at which Jim whimpered at the loss, so contact was the way to go), Leonard started injecting him with synthetic neurotransmitters and various neurotransmitter blockers; hoping desperately that he wasn’t making things worse. It concerned him that Jim showed no signs of waking, and Leonard wondered how long he had been on the bathroom floor.

Task done, the only thing left to do was wait and hope that Jim would wake up on his own. Leonard gently moved to sit at the head of the bed so that Jim was cradled in his lap and it was easier to keep a hold of his neck. He kept his tricorder open at his side, constantly monitoring him in case of any change. Sitting back against the wall, Leonard let his mind drift. So many things made sense about Jim now. The mood swings were probably a result of the suppressants, and Jim’s charm and his unwavering ability to get himself out of trouble and into the good graces of everyone around him were probably due to his empathy. Part-bloods were supposed to have weaker empathic and telepathic abilities than full-bloods, but based on Jim’s readings Leonard suspected that wasn’t quite the case for the kid lying in his lap. It would also certainly explain Jim’s constant nosebleeds and was probably related to Leonard’s headaches. Never in his life had he suffered so many of them and when he thought back he only really developed them when Jim was particularly emotional, they were probably a side-effect of Jim’s shields slipping ‘Damn it, he needed to be in Special Housing!’

As he sat there, Leonard barely realised that he had started using his other hand to gently stroke Jim’s hair. He thought back to a conversation he had overheard in the clinic a couple of months ago, about a cadet who’d helped two student nurses with their empathic training. At the time, he hadn’t thought anything of it. All medical track cadets had to undergo empathic and telepathic training to ensure they could treat patients properly. This particular cadet had failed the test twice, before some mysterious blonde-haired, blue-eyed cadet had helped her. Leonard rather suspected that it wasn’t a mystery after all, and that said cadet was probably Jim; it was a leap in logic but Leonard just knew he was right.

A stray thought made Leonard abruptly sit up, the motion making Jim whimper as his hand slipped from its contact on his neck. Quickly, Leonard replaced his hand and waited with held breath for the whimpering to fade. After it had subsided, he turned back to his thinking. Leonard had already passed his empathic and telepathic training when he worked at the hospital back in Georgia, barely passed it that is, but Starfleet had made him retake it (probably because of the low score). When Leonard had finally got the results back, he’d been surprised. He’d scored much higher than before and had attributed it to his greater experience, but now he suspected that Jim had something to do with it. Surely there must have been some consequences to being around an empath daily other than migraines?

With that final thought, Leonard slumped back against the wall and gave in to his exhaustion, reassured by the steadily beeping tricorder beside him. ‘It’ll wake me up if there are any problems.’

The one thing Leonard didn’t notice was that his migraine had faded away completely.

Chapter Text

It took six hours for Jim to wake up.

Leonard was broken out of sleep by Jim shifting restlessly in his lap. Somehow, he’d managed to keep hold of Jim’s neck throughout the night and Leonard was thankful for the uninterrupted sleep, though he already felt his back protest at the rough treatment of sleeping upright. A glance at the clock on the bedside table showed that it was almost 06:00. Through the uncovered window, the first rays of sunlight were starting to creep into the room, casting shadows in the corners and against the walls. At some point, Jim must have shifted quietly enough not to wake Leonard, as instead of being on his back he was on his side, arms gripping Leonard’s leg like a child would cuddle a toy.

Steady beeping came from the still-active tricorder sitting on the bed next to Jim. Fortunately, the readings still looked good and Jim's neurotransmitter levels appeared to be stabilised - ‘Thank God’ he thought - though his brain activity was still on the low end of normal. Another twitch from Jim caused Leonard to shift his gaze back to his best friend. Jim was slowly waking up and damn did Leonard feel a sense of relief at getting to see those blue, blue eyes. He held still as Jim shifted again, a groan coming from his mouth and fingers tightening on his leg. Unfocused eyes trained on the far wall before he slowly turned to face Leonard. His eyes looked glassy from sleep and more than likely the backlash of everything Jim had gone through. A stab of anger hit Leonard and those eyes suddenly became alert.

‘Right, Jim can feel what I’m feeling. I should calm down.’

Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, Leonard tried to do exactly that, but his concern for Jim from when he found him lying on the bathroom floor had morphed into pure anger. How dare Jim do that to him, lie about his medical history, and put himself at risk? If Leonard hadn’t come home early Jim would more than likely be dead. And didn't that make something in him shatter? Who would have thought the past few months of friendship meant so much to him?

A small press of cold fingers on his cheek suddenly startled him from his thoughts. Waves of calm started to rush over him, like a final ocean wave giving way to calm seas and blue skies. Opening his eyes, he saw Jim’s raised arm. Leonard followed it down and finally came to focus on Jim’s face. Wary blue eyes gazed back at him and Leonard felt the last remains of anger melt away. In the low light he could see a spot of blood on Jim's neck that he’d missed when cleaning him up last night. For a moment it’s the only thing Leonard can think about, and it takes a second to reorder his thoughts.

“Are you OK?” Leonard barely whispered, afraid to speak louder out of fear of cracking the calm.

Jim, for a moment, doesn’t answer. From his position above him Leonard could see the weariness build in his eyes, could feel the tightening of muscles from a man held on the edge, a man used to running from his problems instead of facing them (the two were far more alike than either wished to admit). He could see Jim trying to piece things together, how he’d managed to end up cradled in Leonard’s lap, no doubt feeling overwhelmed by his mental presence forcing its way onto him. The seconds dragged on and Leonard wondered if he’ll have to make a sudden dive for Jim, if he’ll try running from this instead of facing it head-on. He squeezes the hand he still has on Jim’s neck and the hand on his face suddenly drops, an exhausted sigh coming from Jim simultaneously. Muscles relax and Leonard breaths out, reassured that, at least for the time being, Jim’s staying put.

“You know.” Jim rasps out into the silence of their room.

It isn’t a question and Leonard doesn’t bother answering. Instead, he reaches over to the bedside table where Jim always keeps a glass of water. He doesn’t get very far though. The hand that had been on his face earlier grabs his arm, fingers digging in with a strength Jim had no right to have given everything he’s been through.

Jim whispers to him, so softly that it takes a few moments to process what he says, “Bones? Please don’t leave.”

Leonard relaxes back into his sitting position, letting his hand drop to Jim’s head, once again slowly stroking through the mussed-up strands. He speaks far softer than he intended, but whatever Jim did to him was still making the thoughts in his head seem unimportant.

“What do you need darlin’?”

“Just hold me. Please.” Leonard’s never heard Jim speak like that before, all soft and vulnerable and it makes something in his chest hurt. Leonard’s only ever seen Jim with barely restrained enthusiasm, even sick he has an energy around him. Seeing him like this isn’t right, and it causes a pain in his chest he hasn't experienced since his marriage broke down - something he tries not to think about too often as it is. Jim’s blue eyes were still trained on him, and Leonard could swear that in the low light it looked liked Jim was about to cry.

“I’m not leavin’. Don’t worry.”

Slowly Leonard rearranges himself and realises the full extent of falling asleep against a wall, his back aches something fierce and he knows he’ll be feeling it for days. The tricorder is put away on the table, no longer needed now that Jim’s woken up and seems stable (Leonard will have to double-check later but for now it can wait). He slowly moves himself down the bed so that he's lying face-to-face with Jim, his hand still on the back of his neck and his other arm wrapped around Jim’s waist. They need to talk about this, but right now they need sleep more. Jim curls up on himself, as much as he can wrapped in Leonard's arms, and brings his hands up to rest on Leonard’s chest.

Both of them fall asleep to the sound of each other breathing.

--–--

He’s surrounded by wheat.

It’s a sight that makes Leonard's chest fill with nostalgia. Some of his strongest childhood memories were of playing in the wheat fields, running between the stalks, pretending to be chasing pirates. As he got older, the fields his family maintained became his hiding place. More often than not, Leonard could be seen leaving the farmhouse with his PADD and a blanket, only to come back hours later with more freckles on his skin and a head filled with stories and knowledge. He couldn’t count the number of hours of his life he’d spent lying in the fields, soaking up the sun.

The barn at the bottom of the field is just as he remembers, red paint peeling and windows smashed. The barn had stopped being used regularly before he was born and was only used as a place to store unneeded equipment. There used to be a hole in the other side of the barn and Leonard would sneak in and pretend he was on some sort of secret mission. That stopped though, when he tripped one day and landed on a rusty piece of metal. He wasn’t supposed to be in the barn, so he didn't tell anyone what had happened, that didn't matter though as the resulting infection and fever he got did all the talking instead. It took weeks for him to be allowed back outside. The first thing he did was go back to the barn, only to find out that the hole had been boarded up.

He didn’t play in the barn ever again.

Leonard turned away from the building and walked towards the line of trees on his left, brushing wheat stalks out of the way as he went, feet slowly taking him to the little stream just beyond the trees. During autumn, the stream would swell with the relentless rain and become big enough to swim in. That was Leonard’s favourite time of year. When it was still warm enough for a T-shirt and a dip in the bursting stream was a welcome relief - it just wasn’t the same any other time of the year.

Reaching the stream, Leonard stopped and took a deep breath. It was just as he remembered. After everything that had happened, Leonard hadn’t seen the fields and the stream look like this in years. He only ever made his way back home (when he was allowed) during the winter months when the stream was frozen over and the fields were bare. Walking along the stream’s edge, Leonard searched for the old-school swing that was strung up from the thick branches high above, the white walls of the farmhouse ahead peaking through the leaves as he searched. Swing found, Leonard sat and faced his childhood home, taking in the blue and pink flowers his mother insisted they plant every year and the ivy she always complained about but never did anything with.

From the swing, Leonard could see the window leading to his bedroom. It was just above the wooden deck and, if you were careful, you could climb out of the window, onto the roof of the deck and then make your way up to the roof where you could watch the stars.

Smiling softly, Leonard closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of home.

----–

It isn’t until the sun is high in the sky that they wake up again.

There’s something so peaceful about them lying together on the too-small bed, still in the same positions as before. Jim’s eyes are closed but Leonard knows he’s awake, can feel the panicked breaths against his chest. The adrenaline from the night before and the calm Jim had made him feel had worn off, leaving him feeling lost and raw. He tightens his grip on Jim, and in return Jim tightens his grip on Leonard's shirt. He doesn’t want to speak, doesn’t want to shatter the fragile peace of the room, but he knows he has to. Leonard needs answers to some serious questions and he hopes to all hell that Jim will answer.

If he doesn’t…well Leonard might have to go to Medical after all… ‘and won’t that cause all kinds of trouble?’

He waits for a moment, holding Jim to his chest as he tries to think about what to say and how to say it.

He finally settles on “Explain it to me.”

There’s no answer for a while, and if Jim wasn’t pressed against his chest Leonard would have assumed that he’d fallen back to sleep. But he is pressed against him, and Leonard can feel Jim’s breath stuttering against him in a pattern which is anything but sleep. Leonard almost wishes he hadn’t put the tricorder away. ‘God knows what his levels look like now.’ Just as he thinks Jim won’t answer, he feels a shaky breath being drawn and a whispered confession.

“I’m not sure where to start.”

“The beginning often helps.”

There’s a pause again and this time Leonard knows that Jim will answer, he just doesn’t know how, and needs a moment to collect his thoughts.

“I shouldn’t have the abilities I do.”

That isn’t where Leonard thought the conversation was going to start and he has to hold in his surprise and annoyance, forgetting for a moment that Jim can probably feel everything he feels. Jim once again tightens his grip on Leonard's shirt and he just decides to go with it. “What do you mean?”

It’s like a dam has suddenly broken and Jim’s words come out in a rush, each one edged with bitterness and hate. “I’m only a ¼ Betazoid. At most, I should only have low-level empathy. But the universe apparently hates me and my abilities surpass most full-blooded Betazoids. I’ve never been able to completely block people out. Not without suppressants at least. It’s taken years of work to be as functioning as I am now and I hate it, I hate everything about it.”

Leonard's about to reply and ask for more information, but he doesn’t get that far before Jim’s talking again, bitterness morphing into hurt and what feels like tears start dripping onto his shirt.

“And it hurts Bones. I can’t focus in the dorms ‘cause of all the people, and I can’t focus in class ‘cause of the same reason. Apparently no one shows any courtesy to any empathic species because everything they feel is broadcast at max volume. And I know suppressants are stupid, but you have no idea what I feel every minute of every day and I just wanted it to stop!”

Leonard barely hears the last of Jim’s sentence through the flood of tears and choking sobs; it takes a moment to realise that his blurry eyesight is because he’s crying too. Whether it’s of his own emotions or Jim’s abilities he doesn’t know, but he can only lie there, holding Jim tightly until he’s ready to talk about the rest.

It takes a while for Jim to calm down, and as the sun makes its way across the sky Leonard can only think of one thing: ‘Oh God, Jim.’

“It’s OK Bones.” Jim says through sniffles, tears slowly drying up.

Leonard pauses, ‘...wait, what?’

“Yeah, I can hear you. My shields are a mess right now and I can pick up on your thoughts as if you were talking.” Here, Jim goes quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry, I know it’s invasive but please don’t leave me.”

As if Leonard would even consider the option. Instead he asks one more question, one that he’s been burning to know from the beginning.

“It’s not in your medical file. Does anyone know?”

“No.” He says definitively, before pausing and continuing more hesitantly. “Well, no one in Starfleet. I had to spend some time on Betazed so, obviously, everyone I interacted with knew. And then I spent a few years on a Vulcan research ship where they all knew. Oh and my old school knew as well. But other than that. No. No one knows.”

Leonard rather suspects that there’s more to the whole story. Had noticed that Jim never specified why he was on Betazed or even a Vulcan ship, which ‘What the hell?’. Leonard takes a deep breath and prepares himself for what he’s about to say next, knowing full well that it wasn’t going to be received well and damn it Jim already suspected something if his sudden freeze meant anything.

“You need to tell Pike.”

The only reason Jim doesn’t jump straight out of bed is because of Leonard’s hold on him, but damn if he doesn’t give it a good go.

“No, Jim, listen to me. I found you passed out on the floor with blood dripping from your nose and ears. Ears Jim! If my transport hadn’t been cancelled you would be dead!”

At that Jim stops struggling, and Leonard pulls himself together enough to carry on. Talking about seeing Jim on the floor makes it all become real and Leonard’s not sure he can hold it together much longer.

“You need to be in Special Housing. And someone, anyone, needs to know for medical purposes. I have no idea how you’ve managed to keep it secret for this long, but someone needs to know Jim.”

The reply is pitiful, the fight lost from Jim. “But you know.”

--–
In the end they don’t tell Pike. But Leonard makes Jim tell him everything. Well, almost everything. The question of ‘Why?’ is still unanswered but Leonard will take what he can and work the rest out later. He also makes Jim hand over the copy of his full medical file ‘Thank God the kid has some sense.’ Jim flinches when he thinks that and Leonard endeavours to try harder to keep thoughts like that to himself.

Jim must feel how angry Leonard is over the whole situation as he doesn’t once protest over the daily checks on his health, doesn’t even protest when Leonard pulls up every text he can get his hands on about Betazoid physiology, even though Leonard knows Jim would rather burn it all to the ground and continue pretending he was something else. Jim even goes and asks Sarek - ‘How the hell does he know Ambassador Sarek?’ - if Leonard can have restricted access to the main Vulcan database. He’s not happy about it, but he does it for Leonard anyway.

In return, Leonard doesn’t protest when Jim sneaks into his bed at night with a quiet “I sleep better next to you.” Instead, he just rolls over to gather Jim in his arms and holds him tight, one hand on his waist and the other gripping the back of his neck.

Chapter Text

By the time the term started again in January, Jim had never felt better (despite Bones’ grumbling). If he was honest with himself, Jim was rather impressed that he’d managed to overcome his colossal mistake of taking suppressants with barely any long-term side effects. Well, OK, needing to sleep in Bones’ bed because he just couldn’t sleep on his own anymore might be considered one of said long-term side effects, but Bones hadn’t worked that one out yet a careful “It’s quite with you around” was more than enough to stop him in his grumbling about Jim’s health and let him sprawl all over his bed.

Jim still wasn’t too happy about having to hand over his unedited medical file. To be completely honest, Jim’s not entirely sure why he told Bones in the first place. When he first woke up on Bones’ lap (which Jim was scared to admit felt way too good), he’d pretty much decided to deny/ignore the whole thing and then somehow found himself spilling it all anyway. Ever since then he’s been walking on eggshells around Bones, but so far he hasn’t reported him or tried to get him into counselling so Jim calls it a truce (Jim also tries to ignore the pointed look he got from Sarek when he called to ask about access to the Vulcan database. Jim is 100% not going to enjoy their next conversation and he’s going to put it off for as long as physically possible).

Jim damn well knows Bones wants to report it, he grumbles about it often enough and despite Bones’ best efforts to shield his thoughts, Jim could hear them from across their dorm room loud enough that they may as well have been shouted in his ear.

Jim had thought that handing over his file might make things better. It didn’t.

A few days after ‘The Event’ as Jim was calling it, he’d been sat on their sofa reading his textbooks, for lack of anything better to do. Bones had said he didn’t want Jim to go out until his vital signs had fully stabilised - “and seen as I don’t know what the hell they’re supposed to be you can damn well sit until I work it out!” - he was halfway through a chapter on ‘Reconfiguring Impulse Engines’ when Bones had obviously reached the part in his file about Tarsus and God did Jim want to run away from that one. Not even the childhood injuries made him cringe as much. Jim gave him a few days until he finally made a break for it and hid in the Gym on campus as Bones was taking a shower. Jim could feel the second Bones realised he was gone from halfway across the campus, and wasn’t that terrifying?

‘Surely I shouldn’t be able to do that?’

Eventually the new term started, and Bones had reluctantly let Jim go to his classes provided he submitted to bi-weekly scans.

‘Better than the daily scans of Christmas.’

Unfortunately, with everyone returning to the dorms after the holiday, Jim felt the pounding in his head start up again and knew that Bones was also feeling the after-effects, if the constant spikes of worry were anything to go by. Jim could also tell he was trying not to comment on the headaches that had returned in full force, not that that made Jim feel any better considering he was the cause. The quietness of the dorms over Christmas made Jim forget just how bad things were during term time and cracks were already forming in his facade. Eventually, almost by accident, Jim managed to find a solution.

The Library.

It was one of the only public spaces in the Academy that was properly shielded from empathic and telepathic signals. Dampeners were on every floor and were routinely checked to make sure they were still fully functioning. They didn’t block out signals entirely, just enough that they became background noise, enough that you could focus on your work but not be overwhelmed when you left the building and moved outside the dampeners range. How Jim didn’t think of it sooner he didn’t know, but by the end of January he’d spent all of his free time there, only leaving when Bones was back from the clinic and Jim knew he could go home and wrap himself in the soft blanket of Bones’ mental signature and immerce himself in the calm of his mental landscape.

The quiet meant that Jim not only managed to catch up on all the Christmas work that he hadn’t been able to do due to ‘The Event’ but had also completed all of his remaining coursework for all his current classes, his teachers more than willing to allow him to hand in work early. Well, mostly willingly, Jim did have to charm his physics professor into allowing him to see the easter assignment early. He had to practically swear a blood oath to keep the topic a secret as well. It turned out alright in the end though, as the professor proceeded to use his work as an example to his 3rd-year classes, which made Jim feel smug for about a week afterwards.

The problem with completing all of the required work for the rest of the year was that by the end of February, Jim was bored. He’d already had a meeting with Pike, asking if he could take more courses, but Pike had firmly said no, told him to go enjoy himself and that he’d already proved himself and that he could do with taking a rest.

But Jim Kirk doesn’t know how to rest, and Captain Pike hadn’t yet learned to never leave Kirk bored.

Instead, Jim signed up for a number of extracurricular clubs. Despite his words, he left the Linguistics club alone, a choice he made somewhat reluctantly given who had taken him under their wing when he was on Tarsus. While it would have been fun to poke and prod at Uhura, the mental trace left on her by a supposed partner gave Jim a headache and he tried to stay away from her as much as possible; he still wasn’t sure if she was aware of it, but he was not willing to open that particular can of worms (or the questions pointed at him asking him how he knew in the first place). He’d managed to join the Engineering club after proving he could rebuild a replicator in just over an hour; they were still a little reluctant to let a command track cadet into the club but he’d managed to prove himself for now. He’d also joined the running club and his morning hour-long runs had turned into early morning 3-hour runs. Jim had even managed to perfect the art of slipping out of Bones’ arms in the morning without waking him up. He always finished his run by visiting a little bakery just off campus and buying breakfast for himself and his roommate.

So, all in all, Jim was doing good. He should have known it wouldn’t last.

–--

Bones had been put on a different clinic rotation and no amount of complaining had managed to get him out of it. He’d tested out of one of his courses, so he didn’t have lectures in the mornings anymore. This, according to Starfleet, meant that he could do a double shift every evening, not getting back to the dorm until past midnight. Not only did it throw Bones off his routine, but Jim’s routine went out the window as well. But well, Jim can adapt and instead of his early morning runs he switched to a night run, meaning he was back at the dorm just before Bones. He’d then try, and fail, to fall asleep before crawling into bed with his bleary-eyed roomate. Seeing as Jim had also completed all his coursework, he too didn’t have to get up early and instead they could both sleep in until Bones had to get up for his afternoon lectures and Jim disappeared into the Library.

It was only a few days into their new schedule that Jim realised that he was forgetting something. Since returning from Christmas, one of the cadets in the building decided it was a great idea to throw a party every Friday night in their dorm. Usually, Jim would miss most of the fun, instead spending most of the night in the Library until the party started moving to the bars instead of the dorm and Bones would tell him it was safe to come back, at which point they’d roll into bed like an old married couple and Jim would drown out the remaining noise by burying himself in his own mental landscape. But the change in routine made Jim completely forget about the weekly party in the upstairs dorm, and because of Bones’ double shift, he wasn’t there to tell him it wasn't safe to come back yet.

He’d been late leaving the Library and rushed back to the dorm without a single thought, wanting to get into his running stuff as fast as possible so he’d have enough time for a proper workout. It wasn’t until he was halfway getting dressed that he realised his mistake. He’d been in so much of a rush that he hadn’t even tried to reinforce his shields and the thoughts of what seemed like 30 drunk people bashed into his head. He stumbled into the wall, hands reaching up towards his head as if they could block out the sound. Blood was already dripping from his nose, he could feel it but couldn't see it - his vision was already completely whited out. The mental signatures from upstairs had merged into one, massive, blinding light. He stumbled forward, trying to reach the PADD on the coffee table so he could send a message to Bones. He frantically tried to shore up his mental shielding, but the damage was already done.

‘Shit! I should have remembered this.’

His last thought before he lost consciousness was a scream of ‘BONES!’

–--

God, Leonard hated Friday night clinic duty. So far he’d managed to avoid it but the absence of ‘Identifying Injuries without a Tricorder’ ‘Why the hell don’t these people know how to do that?’ from his course load meant he’d had his shifts changed about and was now stuck with, arguable, one of the worst shifts at the clinic. The only saving grace was that he wasn’t on duty Saturday night as well - the other worst shift at the clinic.

Fortunately, the party goers hadn’t yet managed to find their way into trouble so the clinic was rather quiet. After seeing to an injured cadet from the engineering track and lecturing her on coming to the clinic as soon as she was injured, rather than four hours later, Leonard parked himself at a table in the break room and pulled out his personal PADD. Since Christmas, every spare minute he had had been dedicated to looking at Jim’s file and pulling up everything and anything to do with Betazoid physiology.

Despite knowing the contents back to front, it still made Leonard wince at the little section in Jim’s file labelled ‘Tarsus’, not to mention the concerning number of broken bones from Jim’s childhood. Leonard knew that his mother disappeared as soon as she could and that his stepfather was not a good man, but the picture the injuries painted was not pretty. For now, Leonard had left it alone. He’d only known Jim for a few months but he was 100% certain that Jim would run at the first opportunity if Leonard started asking uncomfortable questions. The fact that Leonard managed to convince Jim to hand over his unedited record was practically a miracle, one he suspected might not have happened at all had Jim had more wits about him after the Christmas fiasco. Leonard just wished that access to it provided more answers than questions though.

Jim was right when he said he shouldn’t have the abilities he did. All the research he’d managed to find suggested that only full-blooded Betazoids had the range of gifts that Jim did, and Leonard rather suspected there were more that Jim had somehow repressed. There was no recorded evidence that a part-blood had anything more than slightly enhanced empathy, and even then, the records were sparse. What Leonard would like nothing more to do was consult Dr Boyce; if anyone was likely to know what to do with Jim (and keep it somewhat to himself), it was him. Multiple times over the last few weeks Leonard had been halfway through asking him about Jim and had to stop himself before he could say too much. As much as Leonard needed the help, he knew that Jim would bolt and disappear if Leonard spilt his secrets like that. Leonard didn’t even know why it was a secret. It was yet another question he’d like to ask Jim but didn’t dare. Not yet anyway.

Leonard leaned back in his chair and scrubbed at his face ‘God, this is such a mess.’ Leonard still wasn’t even sure what Jim’s normal neurotransmitter levels were. The baseline he’d assumed once Jim had calmed down over Christmas matched the one in his file that the Vulcan doctor recorded ‘I wonder if I should contact her?’ but it didn’t match the one from when he stayed on Betazed - and Leonard had already been warned not to contact Healer Pierce without Jim’s explicit permission. Leonard would like to assume that the readings taken from the Betazoid hospital were the correct ones, as they were more likely to know Jim’s physiology, but the Vulcan doctor had run a series of thorough tests to get her results and had commented that his baseline might have changed due to the trauma he’d undergone ‘That’s putting it lightly’. After treating Jim for neural degradation, the baseline that she had taken had been maintained for the rest of his time onboard the ship. God Leonard hated Vulcans with a burning passion, but he gave credit where it was due; she seemed like an extremely competent doctor. Her notes were very thorough, and it was only her notes that gave Leonard as much of an idea as he had concerning Jim. Without them, he’d probably be completely lost.

Straightening up from his slouched position, Leonard got up to get himself a cup of coffee, he’d need it if he was going to stay awake for the rest of his shift.

Once he had sat back down, Leonard looked back over his notes. Over Christmas, he’d been scanning Jim once a day and noting down the results, once the term had started, he reduced it to twice a week. He appeared to be stabilised, but Jim was a master liar and Leonard wouldn’t put it past him to somehow convince his body to show false readings. Something was obviously still not right with him. Jim may think he’s slick, but after the fourth “It’s quiet with you around” Leonard was on to him. Not to mention that Leonard still had those unexplained headaches that were a backlash from Jim. Why? He didn’t know, Jim didn’t even know. Their best guess was that because they spent so much time with one another Jim had almost imprinted on Bones “Like the way ducks imprint on their mothers!” Jim had gleefully declared before having a pillow thrown at him.

What was interesting was how Jim could almost always identify a person with empathic or telepathic abilities and the relative strength of said abilities. Leonard had asked if someone could do that to him but apparently you had to be particularly powerful to detect that. Jim suspected that a couple of the Betazoid professors knew about him but never mentioned it as they weren’t Jim’s professors and probably assumed that everyone was ‘in the know’ as it were.

As Leonard contemplated what to do next the head nurse on duty came into the breakroom.

“Sorry to disturb you Dr McCoy, but we’ve just had a couple of people come in that need to see a doctor.”

Putting his half-empty cup down, Leonard let out a sigh before getting up and following the nurse out of the room.

“What’s wrong?” He asked.

“It looks like 2nd-degree burns. It appears as though they were also in the explosion in the Engineering Labs this morning and have only just found their way here.”

Leonard cursed under his breath “Damn fools, why wait ‘till now?”

The nurse didn’t reply, but he could see her trying not to smile out of the corner of his eye. She handed the chart over and left Leonard to go treat, and lecture, his new patients.

‘God help us if this is the best Starfleet has to offer.’

–--

An hour and two lectures later Leonard returned to his chair in the breakroom. Or at least that was the plan. Halfway across the room Leonard was suddenly hit with a blinding pain in his head and could swear on his life he heard Jim scream his name.

Leonard didn’t think, he just acted. He rushed back out of the breakroom, grabbing an emergency medical kit on his way, and practically ran out of the clinic doors shouting “There’s a medical emergency. I’ll be back” to the stunned nurse at the front desk. Leonard knew this would come back to bite him in the ass; no doubt he’d have to come clean to Dr Boyce less he wanted several marks on his record but right now his priority was Jim and Leonard knew in his bones that he was in trouble.

In no time at all, Leonard was crashing through the door to their dorm room, almost tripping over Jim in his haste. The scene was eerily similar to Christmas. Jim was lying unconscious on the floor with blood dripping from his nose and ears. In the background, Leonard could hear the music blasting down from the dorm above and immediately knew what the problem was. Taking out the tricorder, Leonard scanned Jim. The readings weren’t quite like Christmas but they were still concerning. Fortunately, this time, Leonard was more prepared and could (almost) confidently start treating Jim. To Leonard's relief, it didn’t take long for Jim’s levels to start evening out again and as he took Jim’s pulse he could see him slowly regaining consciousness.

A slurred “Bones?” came from Jim and Leonard couldn’t hold in his relief.

“Yeah, Jim, it’s me.” Slowly putting away his equipment, Leonard settled onto the floor next to Jim, a hand automatically going to Jim’s neck. He would like to try and move him, but he thought it’d be better if he waited to see if Jim could do it himself.

“I’m sorry, I forgot about the party.” The words were less slurred now, but still sounded as if Jim was half-asleep.

“It’s OK. I’m here now.”

For the next few minutes they were both quiet, the only noise coming from the thumping music upstairs. Slowly, Leonard helped Jim stand ‘Thank God he seems OK’ and guided him over to his bed.

“How long?” Jim asked.

“Not long. I heard you from the clinic and came straight away. Not sure how I’m gonna explain that one, but I’ll work it out.”

Jim paused for a second before lowering himself onto the bed. “Heard me?”

“Yeah, I heard you scream my name.”

---
“You heard me scream your name?” Jim asked ‘What the hell?’ he thought as Leonard pulled the covers over him.

“Yeah. Now go to sleep, I’ve got you.”

Jim’s last thought before sleep took him was ‘That’s not right, I shouldn’t be able to do that…’

Chapter Text

Fortunately for Jim, all it took was a couple of hours rest for his vital signs to stabilise completely.

---

Not long after Bones had come to find him, Jim’s readings had calmed down enough that he felt comfortable getting Jim up and into bed under his own power. It was slow going, Jim had to stop every few steps due to the dizziness in his head threatening to topple him, but they managed it eventually, with only one grumble from Jim complaining about going to bed partly in his cadet reds.

Once Jim was lying comfortably in bed (Bones’, not his) - “Bones, I don’t need you to fluff my pillows.” “Shut up Jim.” - Bones had marched upstairs to their party-going neighbours and shouted at them for a solid ten minutes to take the party elsewhere, unless they wanted him to call campus security. Jim couldn’t make out exactly what he said, the walls being too thick to hear things fully, but he could hear that Bones didn’t leave a single inch for anyone to argue back. No one can resist a McCoy rant, and the partygoers left in short order, making it much easier for Jim to block out the remaining noise. He could still feel occasional flashes of emotions from the rest of the building, but they were faint, just off the edge of his awareness, enough that he could ignore them even with his weakened mental defences. By the time Bones had made his way back to their dorm, Jim was immersed in his mental landscape, floating on slowly calming seas, watching the sky clear and the thunderclouds slowly drift off into the distance.

Bones stayed with him for the next hour, cuddling up to Jim in a way he would deny if asked. One hand on Jim's neck, the other gently stroking through the short hairs at the base of his head. Jim could still feel the anxiety coming from Bones, he was a lot more worried than he let on, mostly about how his sudden departure from the clinic would be taken. Just as Jim was sinking into a deep sleep, a chirp came from Bones’ PADD, alerting him to a message.

“Jim, I’m sorry, I’ve got to head back to the clinic. I’ve already been gone too long.” Whispered Bones, not yet moving despite his words.

Jim didn’t want him to go, as much as his shielding was back up it wasn’t quite right, it was almost as if his shields had sprung a leak and damn if Jim knew how to fix it. Not to mention the fact that he still had the nagging feeling of wrongness at Bones’ confession of having ‘heard him’. Instead of telling Bones this, all he said was, “It’s alright. Go.”

Bones left reluctantly, and Jim managed to slip into sleep to the backdrop of residual anxiety coming from his roommate. If Bones got into trouble for this, Jim would never forgive himself. He had to do something and had the feeling he wasn’t going to like it.

---

Jim never felt Bones slip back into the dorm once his shift had finished, nor did he feel him crawl back into bed with him, but he was there as the sun woke Jim up, face calm in his slumber, hands on Jim in their usual places. Jim let himself relax in Bones’ hold, but instead of falling back asleep, he slipped into his mental landscape to assess the damage.

At first, it looked as if everything was alright: the sea was calm and the sky was blue, but as Jim looked closer, he could see that things weren’t quite as they should be. Instead of bright blue seas, Jim was faced with water that was pitch black; the dancing fish that always surrounded him were nowhere to be seen, lost either in the depths of the ocean or to the darkness of the sea. In the distance, the multicoloured boats that housed his memories had started to bob a little closer, edging their way to the forefront of his mind. The sky wasn’t right either, whilst it was still blue, it wasn’t the right shade, and it instantly reminded Jim of summer storms back in Iowa. Concerned, but sensing no immediate problems, Jim settled down on his boat and waited until Bones woke up. He didn’t have to wait long, as soon enough he could feel Bones’ mental presence strengthening, showing that he was waking up. Jim took one last concerned look at his landscape before pulling himself to the real world.

They were both quiet as they made and ate breakfast. Fortunately, it was the weekend, so neither of them had anywhere they needed to be, and they slowly woke themselves up in each other's presence. The anxiety Jim had felt from Bones last night was gone, so he hoped he hadn't had to answer any awkward questions when he got back to the clinic. Jim’s anxiety, however, was through the roof. The whole ‘shouting Bones’ thing had left him a little stumped since the moment he’d heard it, and not knowing what was going on was giving him hives. But at some point during breakfast, the realisation had hit him so hard he almost dropped his fork.

They were partially bonded.

Jim stewed in his anxiety throughout the rest of breakfast, completely missing the ever-increasing looks of concern Bones was sending him.

After breakfast, Bones confessed that he wanted Jim to stay in the dorm and even offered to sign them both off for a few days to allow Jim to recover a bit more before being subjected to more people. Jim refused, and the ensuing argument could probably be heard from the front door. Bones thought it was because he was being stubborn, but Bones didn’t know what Jim suspected. Jim didn’t need more time to stew in his thoughts, he needed information, and the only place he was going to get it was the library.

Jim ended up leaving mid-argument; the only reason he managed to escape at all was because he was standing closer to the door than Bones and had already been adept at quick getaways due to his less-than-normal childhood.

The journey to the library took no time at all, thanks to all of Jim’s late-night runs. If he had been more aware, Jim might have been impressed with himself at the difference running had made, and it certainly would have impressed his physical education instructor. Approaching the library, Jim barely spared a glance at the woman on the reception desk, whom he usually flirted with, and instead headed straight towards his usual spot on the 12th floor.

The 12th floor wasn’t a particularly popular level. It housed the Academy’s texts on pre-20th-century non-fiction, and as such, nobody used it. There was much debate on the floor itself; many argued that there was no need to have hard copies of these particular texts, and the space could be used for something else. Jim didn’t particularly care past the point of the floor being empty. Over the past few weeks, he had claimed a large bench and computer nearer the back of the floor, right next to the toilets that never seemed to be used. He was logged into the computer before he had even sat down, already running searches before the computer had fully booted up. Jim was in such a mess over the whole situation that he didn’t even try to hide his search and reading history, as he usually would when looking up suspicious texts. Bones could get away with it because he was a doctor, but it looked rather suspicious as to why a command track cadet would access texts on Betazoid Bonding. That thought didn’t matter, though, as Jim stared at the text on the screen in front of him.

There are many types of bonds between Betazoids. These bonds can range from Familiar to Romantic, with many other types in between. Within each separate category of bond, there are two forms: Partial and Complete.

Some characteristics of a developed or developing bond include:

Awareness of each other's geographical location

The ability to more easily mentally communicate

A greater depth of empathic awareness (sometimes incorrectly identified as precognitive telepathy)

More intense emotional transference

That was as far as he could get before completely freaking out. Jim had half hoped that he was overreacting, that he had misremembered the lecture from Healer Pierce on Betazoid bonds all those years ago. But looking at the text on the screen, he couldn’t deny the suspicion anymore. Worse, it made him realise just how deep this bond might go. He’d barely known Bones for more than a few weeks before he could guess, with certainty, what Bones would say before he even said it. It was only now that Jim realised how important that information was.

It wasn’t until a chime from his PADD broke him out of his trance-like state that he realised that he’d been sitting, staring at the screen, for hours, lost in ever-increasing churning thoughts. ‘Thank God no one comes into the library on a weekend.’ If he had bothered to look, Jim would have realised that his mental landscape was deep in a raging storm, the likes of which it had never seen before, even during some of the worst moments of his life.

Jim took his PADD out. He didn’t remember when he had grabbed it, but it must have been during his abrupt and chaotic exit from the dorm. Looking down at the notification, Jim saw that it was a message from Bones, asking where he was.

Jim ignored it.

And for the rest of the weekend, he ignored Bones too…

---

It’s two days later that Jim caves and calls in some help.

Over the weekend, Jim avoided his dorm like the plague (and by extension, Bones too) by spending his entire time in the library. It was open 24/7, and as long as he didn’t sit in one place too long, no one questioned why he was there or how long it had been since he last left. He took a brief trip to the canteen at some point during Sunday, making sure to pick a time where he could get in and out without being questioned. He didn’t particularly feel like eating, but knew he had to to keep up his strength. Being away from Bones was a stupid idea, especially now that he knew they were partially bonded, and he was already feeling the effects of the separation. ‘God knows what Bones is feeling.’ Despite the dampeners, the emotions of everyone in the library were starting to get to him, and he could feel the cracks starting to form in his shielding. Jim didn’t dare step foot outside the building again, not until he had a better handle on everything. Jim already knew what would happen if he did, and it involved waking up in Starfleet Medical with no knowledge of how he got there.

Briefly, Jim wondered why Bones hadn’t tried to find him yet. Jim knew that he could, if not through sheer guesswork, then certainly through the bond. For a second, all Jim feels is hurt ‘Why hasn’t he come look for me?’ Then he remembers the conference. Monday marked the first day of an intergalactic medical conference that Bones had been allowed to go to. It wasn’t usually for first-year cadets, but Bones’ previous experience meant that he was allowed to accompany the third-year cadets and the instructors. It was supposed to last two weeks and was the one thing that Bones was excited to go and see from the entire term's worth of field trips. Jim couldn’t remember where it was supposed to be hosted, other than somewhere on Earth; he just knew it was someplace far away. They had made plans the other week for Jim to see him off at the transport. Another pang of hurt hits him. Bones would have already left, and Jim hadn’t got to say goodbye. Then he remembers exactly why he’d been avoiding Bones in the first place, and the hurt just morphs into grief.

Jim can’t do this.

It’s another few hours before he finally caves and calls Sarek.

It takes a moment for the call to connect, and in that time, Jim idly wonders if he’s doing the right thing. Part of him hopes that Sarek won't answer, then the blame won’t lie on him. The other part of him is sitting in a dark corner, crying at the reality that his life has become.

The call connects, and for a few moments neither of them speaks. Jim doesn’t know where Sarek is at the moment, but wherever it is, it looks to be sometime in the evening. Jim can just make out that Sarek's wearing the robes he always does when he meditates. If Jim remembers correctly, they were a bonding present from his wife. The thought of bonding sends Jim’s anxiety skyrocketing, and just as it threatens to overwhelm him, Sarek starts speaking.

“Considering the recent sporadic nature of your calls, I did consider the possibility of not speaking to you for several weeks.”

Jim winces as he hears the reprimand for what it really was. When he started at the academy, Jim had promised Sarek weekly calls. That didn’t happen, and it looked as though Sarek was finally calling him out on it.

“I’m sorry,” is all Jim says before everything catches up to him and he finds himself bursting into tears, the likes of which haven’t been seen since his teenage years. Jim’ll never forget the moment he burst into tears onboard The Ra’Shango, and every Vulcan in the vicinity suddenly started broadcasting panic and uncertainty. The whole situation had startled him badly enough that it had made him laugh for about ten seconds before the tears came back, worse than ever. This happened before Sarek had left, and he’d taken a page out of his wife's book and wrapped Jim up in the strongest hug he had ever received. Right now, Jim wished that Sarek wasn’t off-world on his duties; all he wanted was another one of those hugs, and for someone to tell him it was going to be alright.

It takes several minutes for Jim to pull himself back together. He doesn’t know what Sarek is doing, he can’t see through the blur of tears, but he can hear him rapidly typing on his console. Then comes the gentle words, “James, please, tell me what is ailing you?” The sudden change in tone is enough to set Jim off again, and he vaguely recognises that he’s started to hyperventilate.

Just as blackness starts to creep into view, an arm wraps itself around him and he can feel someone crouching down next to him. Jim can only sense faint impressions coming from them, and a glance to his side through bloodshot eyes reveals that the newcomer is Vulcan. They sit in silence for almost ten minutes, Jim taking comfort from this stranger by his side.

Once Jim has calmed down enough, the stranger leaves as quickly and as silently as he came, leaving Jim feeling slightly bewildered.

‘So that’s who left their signature on Uhura.’

He’s still looking in the direction the stranger fled when he hears Sarek's voice again, “Forgive me, James, but you needed someone with you and Spock can keep a secret.”

Turning back to the screen, he questions, “Spock?”

“My son.” Comes the reply.

“Oh.” Jim doesn’t need to be near Sarek to know there’s more to the story than he’s saying, but he trusts Sarek to tell the truth, and if Spock will keep his secret, then he doesn’t intend to pry. Not yet anyway. Regardless, Jim had much bigger problems to deal with at the moment.

“Now. Start from the beginning. What is the problem?”

This time, Jim doesn’t hesitate. He starts with meeting Bones on the shuttle, at the feeling of knowing him his whole life and the overwhelming desire to protect him. Sarek’s already aware of parts of the story, but Jim tells him again anyway, making sure to leave nothing out. He has to stop and backtrack several times, remembering details out of order or realisations that he came to later. Talking about it all at once makes Jim realise the problem had been bad for a while. At the time, the constant headaches didn’t seem that serious, but he never quite realised just how many times Bones had to beg off lectures and clinic duty due to his migraines. The story starts to derail when he reaches Christmas. Jim barely remembers most of it, and his recount reflects that. Mostly Jim remembers feelings, and any actual facts came from Bones telling him later. He tells Sarek that Bones calmed him down, how Bones kept his secret even when Jim knew he wanted to report it. Sarek stays quiet throughout his entire re-telling, not even prompting more information out of him. Jim finishes his story with the events of the party and his realisation that it must mean that he and Bones have an uncompleted bond. By the time he’d said everything he had to, Jim had become aware of the dryness in his throat and how quiet his voice had gotten. The tears from earlier had already dried him out, and all the talking had finished him off. It’s only a moment before Sarek shares his thoughts on the matter.

“I am no expert in Betazoid bonding; that lies with others. But I do agree that the conclusion you have reached is the correct one.”

Jim lets out a breath and closes his eyes, exhaustion creeping up on him. It’s been a hellish few days.

“Vulcan bonding is quite different from Betazoid bonding, but some of the observations you have made match my experience with my own bonded. As you know, my bonded is not Vulcan, but Human. We, too, had difficulty realising and completing our bond due to the differences in cross-species bonding. My advice is to contact Healer Pierce.”

“No.” The answer is immediate, and Jim is a little taken aback by how quickly his exhaustion dissipates.

Sarek merely raises an eyebrow and Jim feels like a little kid getting told off.

Jim squares his shoulders, “I don’t want to talk to him.”

“And why is that?”

It’s a question he should have expected, but that doesn’t make it easier to answer.

“Do you know why I left Betazed?”

“As I have stated previously, you are a wandering spirit. You cannot remain in one place for too long.”

“That’s not the only reason.”

Sarek waits as Jim composes himself. He’s never spoken of this before, and he was a little nervous to do so now. ‘What if Sarek agrees with them?’

Jim starts slowly, “When I was on Betazed…they must have thought I was asleep. I heard them talking. All of them. They wanted to run tests. They’d never seen abilities like mine before, and they wanted to know why. Wanted to know why some ¼ Betazoid kid had abilities that surpassed anything they had ever seen. I heard them, heard all the tests they wanted to run, all the things they wanted to do to me.” He pauses for a moment, “Kodos was the same. Before the massacre. He…he…did things. Things that hurt. Things I didn’t want to do…but he was insane and wanted to know and did them anyway. And I wasn’t going to go through that again! They were supposed to help me! Not experiment on me! So I left.” By the end Jim is shouting, his chest heaving with heavy breaths.

Sarek takes it all in stride. “James, I believe there is a piece of information you are missing.”

“I’m no-” He starts. But Sarek is already interrupting him.

“Healer Pierce was also against what they were proposing to do. I understand that Specialist Jina was also horrified at the discussions they were having. Both of them went before the directors of the hospital and the local government and argued on your behalf. The government ruled to protect you, they ordered that no one should harm you and that no tests were to be undertaken without your explicit consent. Unfortunately, this didn’t sit well with some of the more influential Healers, and they had planned to do the tests in secret. Once you left the hospital, both Healer Pierce and Specialist Jina handed in their licences and publicly condemned the hospital and its directors. Both now work as freelance doctors for Starfleet.”

Jim can’t seem to process what Sarek was saying, but snorted at that ending sentence anyway. “Yeah, right, and Starfleet wouldn’t have the exact same idea as those directors.”

Sarek merely purses his lips, “James, I implore you, please contact Healer Pierce. I…I am worried about you.”

Never before had Jim seen so much naked emotion on Sarek’s face, and the experience is jarring enough that it makes him pause for a moment.

“I’ll think about it.” He says reluctantly.

“Thank you.” “Now, tell me how your studies are going.”

They spoke for another hour, Sarek asking all sorts of questions about Jim’s course. He made sure to stay away from any sensitive topics, something Jim had recognised and very much appreciated. By the time they had run out of things to say, Jim’s anxiety was back down to manageable levels.

“I’m sorry to have kept you up.”

“It is of no consequence. Have a good night, Jim, and if you need anything, do not hesitate to contact me.”

With that, Sarek signed off, and Jim plucked up his courage and called Healer Pierce.

---

He probably should have waited before calling Pierce, but if he did, then Jim just knew he would never call. Sarek must have sent a communication to Pierce when Jim was distracted, as the call was answered almost immediately. Pierce, at first, didn’t say anything. He just looked at him with visible relief in his eyes.

“Jimmy.” He all but breathed.

Jim flinches. Only two people had ever called him Jimmy, and both had let him down. “Kirk.” He corrects.

With pain in his eyes, Pierce corrects himself. “Kirk. I’m glad you contacted me.”

Jim didn’t say anything, he didn’t know if he could. He still wasn’t 100% sure if he trusted Pierce or not, but Sarek did, and he owed it to him to at least try.

“Sarek contacted me. Said you were struggling. Tell me.”

It echoes what Sarek had said to him only a few hours ago, and Jim once again finds himself telling his story. This time, there’s an obvious difference in his re-telling; he doesn’t go as much into detail as before and only tells Pierce the bare bones of what's been going on. All the while, Jim just stared blankly at the wall behind Pierce so that he didn’t have to see the look on his face; he didn’t want to know what he was thinking. In significantly less time than before, Jim had recounted all his evidence. He was still looking at the wall behind Pierce when he got a reply.

“I think you are right. It does sound like a partial bond.”

There’s a pause, and it causes Jim to look at Pierce’s face. He’d not seen Pierce in years, but even now Jim can tell he was weighing up his words, trying to think of what to say and how to say it so that Jim would accept it.

“To be honest, I’m a little surprised. I never thought your abilities would develop like this.”

Jim tenses, and Pierce must see it as he suddenly stops talking. He eventually continues, but it’s clear he’s worried about how Jim would react to what he’s going to say.

“I would like to see both of you in person, if that’s alright?”

When Jim doesn’t react, he carries on.

“I’ve never seen a bond like this between a Betazoid and a Human, so I can only guess as to what to expect.”

Still no reaction.

“I think you should tell him.”

That does it. Jim gives a little jolt and Pierce must see that he’s losing him as the care he’s taken so far to speak to him goes out the window in favour of getting the information across to Jim before he just cuts the call off.

“Uncompleted bonds are dangerous, you have to tell him and complete the bond. If you don’t, you’ll just get worse. People can die from this Jimmy. He could die too.”

“I’ve got to go.” Is all Jim says, completely tonelessly.

“Jimm-” Is all that Healer Pierce manages to get out before Jim cuts the call off.

Chapter Text

When Chris took the position of Instructor at the Academy (waiting for his dream girl, The Enterprise, to be completed), Phil suddenly found himself at a loss. He was of the age where space travel was starting to take its toll, and now that he was planetside, he realised that he no longer wanted to go back into the black. Instead, he took a position at Starfleet Medical, overseeing its on-campus clinic and occasionally taking on bright new minds to mentor. One such mind was Doctor Leonard McCoy. Where Chris found the grumpy southern doctor, Phil had no idea, but the chip on his shoulder was obvious to anyone looking closely, and Phil knew a little something about wanting the past to stay in the past.

McCoy was a brilliant mind, and he would be an excellent CMO to some lucky Captain one day - if he could overcome his aviophobia. Phil knew that Chris was angling to have McCoy eventually be his CMO, and that had contributed to Phil’s decision to take him under his wing. Chris had never asked him to do it, but it was the least he could do for his old friend after dropping the bombshell that he wasn't going to follow when Chris left for space again.

Concerningly, over the last few weeks, McCoy had been acting strange. Phil hadn’t pushed it yet, had wanted to see if McCoy would come to him of his own accord, but soon enough, he was going to have to intervene. At the start of the year, he’d been a washed-up, grumpy drunk with a terrible bedside manner, but had slowly gotten back onto his feet to become well-liked, if still grumpy, with a slightly less terrible bedside manner.

That had all changed over the Christmas period.

McCoy had started coming into his shifts later and later, and the tension in his shoulders had wound tighter and tighter. It was almost as if he had reverted to the version of himself from the start of the year. Phil knew that McCoy suffered from headaches, had even examined him himself, but the amount of time he took off for them had suddenly increased after Christmas, causing Phil's concern to skyrocket. There was also the disappearing act he pulled not that long ago, shouting about some medical emergency that only he knew about, only to return hours later with not a single word to anyone. Phil knew McCoy wasn’t far off asking for help with whatever it was he was involved in. He’d had multiple conversations with the man where he was halfway through asking questions about empathic species before suddenly stopping and changing subjects. Phil was no amateur, he’d been a doctor and a Starfleet officer for years, and even the most socially inept person could read between those lines.

McCoy was protecting someone, someone with empathic abilities who, for some reason, trusted McCoy a hell of a lot more than Starfleet Medical.

‘Maybe past trauma linked with hospitals? Can’t be doctors, otherwise they wouldn’t go to McCoy.’

McCoy’s latest disappearing act was the final straw though. Tomorrow, when he returned from the two-week-long conference, he would be pulled into Phil’s office for a much-needed meeting.

Decision made, Phil decided that it was time to head home. He’d been in his office for the past few hours, working through the dreaded paperwork that he’d been putting off before being distracted by the thought of what to do with McCoy. Just as he was about to stand up, a communication came through on his PADD. Frowning, Phil sat back down and loaded it up onto the screen on his desk, growing even more concerned when it showed just who was calling him. The video link had barely stabilised before the man on the other side began talking. “Doctor Boyce, I’m glad I’ve managed to catch you. I hope I’m not interrupting anything, but I have a bit of a major situation going on.”

Taken aback by the desperation in his voice, Phil’s tiredness evaporated. He settled back into his chair more fully, expecting a heavy conversation. “Healer Pierce, it’s been too long. No, I’m not busy. What do you need?”

Phil had known Pierce for years; he had been on the ship that had transported him from Betazed to Earth when everything went down with the hospital he worked at previously. Phil wasn’t too sure on the specific details of the whole situation, but knew it involved experimenting on minors. His disgust at the situation had stopped him from asking more, not certain he wanted to know. Phil often called Pierce when he had cases involving Betazoids and his own knowledge had reached its end. They’d never gotten along for anything more than co-workers, but there was a certain understanding between them, one born from attending emergencies together.

Pierce sighed. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I have no other option.”

That caused alarm bells to ring in Phil’s ears. After what had happened with the hospital on Betazed, Pierce had become fiercely protective of his patient’s privacy. Over the years, on multiple occasions, Phil had helped him on cases without knowing anything more than the basics. He respected the Healer for his morals, but he hated the thought of what led to it.

Phil didn’t say anything, just waited for Pierce to continue.

“Do you know of someone called James T. Kirk?”

Phil frowned, “Kirk? I know of him, yes. I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to him though.”

“What I’m about to tell you must not go any further than us. If I had any other option I would not involve you. As it stands, I’m about four weeks away from Earth, and that’s not soon enough.”

Here, Pierce pauses. Phil doesn’t know what’s happened, he can only guess that it must be major for him to violate his principles like this. He can see the indecision in the Healer's eyes, wondering if he was making the right choice in involving Phil. As Pierce gathers himself, Phil brings up Kirk’s medical file and starts to look through its contents.

A few moments later, another sigh from Pierce drags most of Phil’s attention back to the call. “Jimm-, sorry, Kirk. Kirk’s suffering from an incredibly powerful, highly advanced, and incomplete Betazoid bond.”

It takes a minute for the words to register, but when they do, it causes Phil to pause his review of Kirk’s file. “Betazoid?”

Pierce sighs again, voice crackling over the long-range communication. “Yes, Kirk’s one-quarter Betazoid. His paternal grandmother specifically.”

The new information really doesn't help. Phil's brain is still reeling from the discovery that Kirk’s file may as well be completely falsified, and the extra details are taking a while to process. “Paternal grandmother?” Phil’s had to listen to Chris and his hero worship of George Kirk for so long and so many times that he damn well knows nothing was ever mentioned about Kirk Senior being part Betazoid.

‘God, that won’t go down well with Starfleet. You can’t lie on enlistment forms like that. If this gets out, it’ll make Starfleet look incompetent, and that’s without the xenophobia towards Betazoids.’

This is so much bigger than Phil first realised, and connections are starting to be made.

‘Isn’t McCoy friends and roommates with Kirk?’

‘Wait, McCoy keeps trying to ask me questions about empathic abilities!’

Phil’s still imagining all the ways this could go wrong when he hears Pierce start again. “I spoke to him about two weeks ago. He’s been suffering for a while and it’s finally gotten bad enough that he contacted me. Kirk likes to pretend that he’s not part Betazoid at all, so if he acknowledged it enough to contact me, it’s probably five times worse than what he’s saying. Since then, he’s refused all my attempts to contact him, both direct and through another person.” Pierce stops for a moment, the weight of the situation making him look much older than he was.

It was obvious this wasn’t just from a professional standpoint, but from a personal one as well. “Phil. He could die from this. His bonded could die from this. Please, if there is anything you can do to help, I’m begging you.”

In all the years Phil had known Pierce, he’d never witnessed this, and it made him very afraid of what was to come. “It’s OK. Of course I will help. What else can you tell me?”

The relief in Pierce’s voice is obvious. “Don’t believe anything in his official medical record. I know for a fact that any records held by you will be completely false. I do have confirmation that he holds a copy of his full medical file, but everywhere else it has ever been held has been wiped clean. I have no idea how he did it, but when he was on Betazed he even managed to wipe the offline back-ups. I’ll send you over all the notes I’ve made based on what I can remember and what I think we can expect. Don’t write his name on them. Jimmy’s always been a genius and any file I make with his name just ends up corrupted.”

Ignoring the use of what was obviously a childhood nickname, Phil raises an eyebrow at the other part of the sentence.

‘Just who is this kid?’

“There’s one other thing I should tell you.” Pierce stops at that, and Phil can see he’s weighing up his options, trying to decide if what he’s about to say is worth it. “Jimmy’s the reason I left Betazed. He’s the child they wanted to experiment on.”

Phil truly didn’t think it could get any worse. He was apparently proven wrong. The curse slips out before he can rein it in. “Jesus Christ.”

“I know.” And suddenly Phil knows why Pierce looks as run down as he does. That event destroyed him and is probably why Kirk’s condition has gotten so bad.

‘Looks like I wasn’t wrong about the trauma to do with hospitals after all.’

“Look, he won’t trust you, but you’ve got to make him. Sedate him if you have to, put him in one of your isolation rooms. We can deal with the fallout after we’ve saved his life.” Pierce looks around for a moment before speaking once again. “I’ve got to go, my transport's about to leave. I’m on my way back to Earth as fast as possible but I’m still a few weeks out. It’s up to you now.”

“I understand. Take care, I’ll update you whenever I can. We’ll see you soon.”

At that Phil logs off the call. He’s still staring blankly at the screen when an incoming file transfer comes in. He had planned to go home, but instead he makes himself another pot of coffee and sits back down to work.

---

Leonard knew there was something very, very wrong with Jim. And he hoped to God he could get back to him before it was too late.

After Jim had run out on him the morning after the party, Leonard had had every intention to go after him. Unfortunately, he was pulled into a medical emergency before having to rush back to his dorm to pack for the upcoming conference. Truthfully, he no longer wanted to go. He’d been looking forward to it for the past few weeks, but with everything going on he was more than happy to not go in favour of looking after Jim. That didn’t happen though, the argument they’d had had sealed his decision. He would go, and he would hope to God that Jim would be alright without him.

He slept through the transport to the hotel they would be staying at and woke to one of the worst migraines that he had ever experienced. He tried contacting Jim, but received no reply. Before he could even come up with the bare bones of a plan he was dragged into the rush of the conference. Not that he took in much with the state of his head.

He ended up begging off the first couple of nights out that he was invited on and by the time the end of the first week arrived Leonard finally realised that his head was fine. Reassured that the lack of headache meant that Jim was fine, he all but threw himself into the final week of the conference, making up for the loss of the first week.

It was only on the transport back that Leonard started to worry. Ever since Christmas, Leonard had been able to tell if Jim was alright. How, he didn’t know. He’d assumed that the lack of migraines meant that Jim was fine, but he hadn't realised that he couldn’t pick up on how Jim was at all. Knowing Jim, it could only mean one thing.

Something was very, very wrong.

---

After logging off the call with Healer Pierce, Jim found himself staring outside one of the windows across from him. It wasn’t until a cleaner came onto the floor that Jim realised he’d been sitting still for so long and that the sun had already set.

‘God. Why did he have to say it was a bond?’

Jim wasn’t ready for this.

He’d never wanted the abilities he had. Had never wanted to be part Betazoid. All it had even done was cause problems. Winona couldn’t look at him because it reminded her of his father. Frank despised him for existing. His schoolmates hated him because they thought he could read their minds, which was a complete lie generated by the xenophobia towards Betazoids. Kodos wanted to experiment on his abilities. Other Betazoids also wanted to experiment on his abilities. Pretending to be Human was the only way people would leave him alone, and now it was messing everything up again. He could die. Bones could die.

He couldn't let that happen.

Instead of contacting Bones, which would have been the sensible thing. Jim found himself across the campus and knocking on the door to the room of the guy who sold suppressants.

He’d not been there since Christmas, had learned his lesson the hard way, but the start of a plan was forming in his head.

He doesn’t remember the walk back to the dorm, but is immediately hit with the scent of home once through the door. It makes something in his chest crack, and he can feel the tears gathering in his eyes. Sitting down on Bones’ bed, Jim stares at the suppressants in his hand. He has access to his medical file, so he knows the dose he has to take to avoid dependence; he just has to be careful.

First things first, he gets dressed for bed. He doesn’t have any lectures left, and there’s no coursework needed for a few weeks so Jim plans to hide in the dorm until Bones is back and then pretend everything is fine. He dives into his mental landscape and pulls out every trick he knows to stabilise the shielding around his mind. He emerges from his meditation almost six hours later, if the clock is to be believed, absolutely exhausted but proud of his progress. He double-checks the dosage of the suppressant before taking it and falls asleep cuddled up to Bones’ pillow.

---

Walking through the door slowly, Leonard half expects to see his best friend either unconscious or dead on the floor of their dorm.

He doesn’t get either.

“Bones!” Comes the exclamation from the sofa. “How was the conference?”

Leonard doesn’t answer. He’s half concerned he’s dreaming when the cheerful voice of Jim hits him.

He’s fine.

‘How is he fine?’

Leonard was still standing frozen in the doorway, wondering if the transport had crashed and he was in heaven, when Jim comes up to him, concerned when Leonard didn’t answer his call.

“Bones? You alright?” There’s genuine concern in Jim’s voice, blue eyes sparkling in the dorm room lights.

He laughs a little, a nervous chuckle showing how uncomfortable he is, faced with the fact that Jim seems fine. ‘Seems’ being the key word.

“Yeah, Jim, I’m fine. The conference was good. How are you?” He squints a little at the last question, eyes running over Jim to try and spot anything off. There’s nothing. It makes him even more concerned.

Satisfied that Leonard’s fine, Jim wanders back to the sofa, and Leonard trails him like a lost little puppy. He slowly pulls his ever-present tricorder out. Jim must spot him as he throws a look of worry over his shoulder before making an abrupt turn for the door.

“You know what, I forgot I have a meeting with Pike.”

Leonard cuts off his escape, both vindicated that his concern is founded and concerned at just how bad things could be.

“Jim, I just want to scan you.”

“No.”

“Jim-”

“I said NO!”

The shout startles Leonard, but before he can respond, there’s a ping from his PADD, alerting him to a meeting request with Doctor Boyce.

“Look, Jim, I’ve got to go. But when I come back, you WILL let me scan you or I swear to God I will go to Doctor Boyce with this. This ends. Now.”

Jim must see the conviction in his eyes as the fight drains out of him. He slumps back down onto the sofa with a quiet “OK.”

Reassured that he isn’t going to run, Leonard drops his bag on his bed (which he idly notices is the only bed that looks slept in) and rushes back out of the door and heads towards the clinic. A feeling of dread starts to creep up on him as he makes his way there.

‘What does Doctor Boyce want to talk to me about?'

---

Bones is barely out the door when Jim dashes to the bathroom. He’d managed a couple of slices of toast in the morning, but he may as well have not eaten at all as he throws everything back up.

He resolutely ignores the splashes of blood that come up too.

---

It only takes Leonard a few minutes to find Doctor Boyce's office. He knocks on the door with a shaking hand and the sound of blood rushing. Leonard must be picking up Jim’s empathy cause he could almost swear he knew what he was about to walk into, and it wasn’t good.

The door opens, and Leonard forces himself to walk inside and sit at the desk.

---

McCoy looks like he’s been sent to his death as he sits stiffly in the chair on the other side of the desk. Phil doesn’t beat around the bush. He’s known McCoy for a while now and knows he doesn't appreciate waffle. And truthfully, Phil wants to know what the hell is going on as quickly as possible.

He’d spent all night looking at the information Pierce had sent over, and he had so many questions running through his mind they were threatening to come out all at once. His growing concern over the situation had almost made him report his findings straight to Chris. He hadn’t, in the end, but it was a near thing. He’d pretty much worked out that McCoy must be Kirk’s bonded, and the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Phil didn’t quite realise just how much McCoy talked about Kirk until the facts were spread out before him. Now though, he has to work out exactly what McCoy knows so that he can help Kirk. Too many people have already been made aware of Kirk’s medical history against his will, he won’t risk telling anyone else and making the problem worse.

McCoy still looks like someone had told him he’s on vomit clean-up duty for the next few months when Phil takes pity on him. He decides to go for the subtle approach first.

“McCoy, thank you for coming to me so quickly. I know this meeting was on short notice.”

McCoy’s reply is quick, but filled with uncertainty. “It’s no problem, Sir.”

Phil nods. “I’ve noticed for the past few weeks that it seems as though you’ve wanted to speak to me. I’m sorry it’s taken so long, but is there anything you want to talk to me about?”

McCoy hesitates for a moment, and Phil hopes he won't have to poke any further. No such luck. “I’m OK, Sir.”

“Are you sure? No problems at work? Or class?” He pauses for a moment, hoping to get his point across with the deliberate hesitation, “What about your roommate, is he alright?”

McCoy’s bedside manner is atrocious, but he’s good at reading a room, so something in his tone must give him away as McCoy instantly relaxes. He waits, confident that McCoy will know he’s got an ally.

It takes a few moments, Phil can see McCoy weighing up possibilities in his mind. Eventually, he speaks, though he doesn’t look at Phil when he does. “Jim’s sick. He needs help, but nothing I say will convince him.”

“Yes, that is what I was told as well.”

At that, McCoy’s head jerks up. “Who? Who told you that?”

“Someone who used to know Kirk, and is concerned for his welfare.”

He can see McCoy trying to work it out. He hopes he’ll keep talking, as Phil is curious as to how much McCoy knows.

McCoy goes quiet again, he has been dancing around doctor-patient confidentiality for so long that even though he’s talking, he’s not actually giving anything away, taking a moment before every sentence to make sure he’s not spilling anything important. A small part of him is proud of his mentee's ethics, a larger part is screaming that now is not the time.

Slowly, McCoy responds. “As far as I was aware, he doesn’t speak to anyone from his past. Straight up told me not to contact anyone.”

From his late-night conversation with Pierce, he can guess why Kirk said that. The time for subtlety was over. Phil needed to know what was going on now, and as much as he admired McCoy for keeping his friends secret, it was straying into dangerous territory. Kirk needed help, and he needed it now, and McCoy was officially putting his friend (bonded?) at risk.

“Look, McCoy, I’m going to be straight with you. Healer Pierce contacted me late last night. Now, he would never normally do this, but he told me what was happening. Kirk needs help, and soon. He’s not here and won’t be for a while, so he’s asked me to help instead. I can help, but only if I know what’s going on.” There, to the point, but not spilling anything McCoy might not already know about.

McCoy surprised him then, letting go of his carefulness and instead pulling out his PADD.

‘He’d probably already come to the conclusion to get help, I just caught him at the right moment.’

He taps on it a few moments before handing it over to Phil. Phil takes it. He’s glad he’s sitting down as the information he’s presented with is more than a little worrying. It takes him close to thirty minutes to read all the data on the PADD, his concern growing with every sentence.

“Christ, McCoy. He needs to be in Special Housing stat.”

McCoy sighs, and Phil is suddenly struck with how many times Kirk has made people sigh. It’s a near thing, but he manages to hold in his huff of laughter “I know, Sir. Trust me, I know. But every time I bring it up he starts an argument and then won't let me look at him. Then he ends up getting worse, and I come home to find him passed out on the floor, and then it takes weeks for him to spring back.” Here, McCoy pauses, and it makes Phil look up from the PADD still in his hand, his concern for Kirk is pushed to the back of his mind so he can focus on the facts. It takes a moment to realise that there are tears in McCoy's eyes, his next words coming out in a choked sob. If there was any doubt that he was Kirk’s bonded, there isn’t now. There is no way the man Phil has mentored for the past few months would just break down into tears. “I just- If I push, he just pushes back and I don’t- I don’t want to walk through that door to find him gone. To find him dead in a ditch because he won’t accept my help anymore. I can’t- I can’t lose him.”

Phil kindly does not comment on the tears, doesn't comment on the fact that Kirk would never actually leave him, not if they were bonded. From the notes on the PADD, and his words just now, it’s obvious that McCoy doesn't know that they are partly bonded, and he’s in no fit state to hear it now. Phil idly wonders if the reason McCoy hasn’t asked for help yet is because Kirk is unintentionally influencing him.

Phil hands McCoy some tissues and calmly speaks. “Kirk needs to be in Special Housing. You’ve done well so far, but there are some things that can only be fixed by getting outside help. I’ll come with you, to convince Kirk he needs that help.”

McCoy looks up when he speaks, and he can see the relief in his eyes. Hiding under that relief though is worry, and Phil can’t help but try and relieve it. McCoy’s not his patient (not yet anyway, but with what Pierce theorised, he could be soon if this doesn’t get sorted) but the doctor in him wants to comfort him anyway. “Don’t worry so much. I have a feeling that Kirk would never truly push you out.”

The blaring of the incoming emergency siren breaks the calm of the office and causes them both to jump in their seats. They look at each other, having a silent conversation.

Emergency first. Kirk second.

---

It takes two hours to deal with the emergency, an explosion in one of the science labs, but once both Phil and McCoy are finished they change out of their scrubs and silently make their way to McCoy’s dorm.

Phil hopes that McCoy can convince Kirk to accept help, as otherwise Phil might have to say some harsh things to get him to see reason. And that, he’s not looking forward to.

Chapter Text

As Phil and McCoy leave the building, McCoy fills him in. It’s times like these that Phil appreciates McCoy's former medical experience (brushing aside the dubious secret-keeping that is), the younger man really has done everything he could to help Kirk, and his recount of the last year is short but all-encompassing. Off the top of his head, Phil can’t think of anything medical that he would have done differently; quite impressive, given that this kind of work wasn’t McCoy’s speciality.

As they walk and talk, Phil can’t help but wonder if the real reason McCoy now feels as though he could get help is that the dynamic in the relationship has changed recently. Kirk was obviously unintentionally influencing him into keeping his secret, but now Phil’s concerned that Kirk has grown so weak over the past couple of weeks that it’s now actually McCoy influencing Kirk, which would explain why Kirk stopped fighting him mere hours ago instead of running out the door like that last time. The thought makes Phil speed up a little.

‘What am I going to walk in on?’

The plan is simple. McCoy will go into the dorm first and try to convince Kirk to get help by himself, with Phil only getting involved if McCoy can’t get anywhere. Phil’s hoping that McCoy can get through to him. If Phil has to get involved, all it will do is reinforce Kirk’s belief that medical staff can’t be trusted, and if his theory is correct, it shouldn’t take that long for McCoy to drag him into line - not unless Kirk’s done something stupid that is.

‘Christ, I hope he hasn’t taken any more suppressants.’

They reach the building in no time at all, McCoy disappearing into the stairwell as soon as he’s through the door. Phil hangs back for a few moments to talk to the security officer at the entrance while McCoy goes on ahead; no sense in working Kirk up any more than he already is. If McCoy is to be believed, then Kirk will 100% know he’s there and what he’s there for. May as well let McCoy break him in gently. The separation also gives Phil the chance to give his ‘Nothing to see here’ speech to the poor security guard who’s about to wish he wasn’t on duty right now.

Business with the officer done, Phil makes his way up to Kirk and McCoy’s floor and perches himself against the wall opposite the door.

Unfortunately, gently hasn’t worked at all. Not five minutes pass before he starts to hear the raised voices of the two roommates.

The walls are thinner than he remembers, and he hopes to god that everyone else on the floor minds their own damn buisness as Phil can clearly hear the argument talking place on the other side and they don’t need nosy neighbours to get involved. Phil’s just about to abandon his place on the wall to go and intervene when the door in front of him opens and out storms Kirk. Either McCoy greatly exaggerated Kirk's abilities (which Phil highly doubts), or Kirk is too sick to use them properly, as it’s obvious, by the way he pulls up short, that he didn’t know Phil was there at all.

‘Christ, this is not good.’

Before Kirk can make up his mind about what to do, Phil’s already pushed away from the wall and shoved him back into the dorm. The look he sends McCoy says everything it needs to as McCoy steps around them to exit the room, leaving them in privacy. Well, as much privacy as is allowed with the paper-thin walls.

As soon as the door is shut behind McCoy, Kirk goes to open his mouth, Phil beats him to it. Ever aware that McCoy is standing just outside the door, Phil keeps his voice down. If anything, it makes what he’s about to say seem more authoritative. “Stop. This ends. Now.”

Kirk goes to open his mouth again.

“No, Kirk. This is not the time for you to talk.”

Kirk is mercifully quiet, and it allows Phil to take a good look at him. What he sees is not pretty.

His eyes are completely bloodshot, and the petechial haemorrhaging around them shows he’s been throwing up. There's a red-brown stain by the corner of his mouth that sends alarm bells ringing.

‘God, I hope that isn’t blood.’

Phil doesn’t know Kirk that well, but even he can see that he’s too thin and the way he’s standing screams exhaustion. Phil’s half-surprised that he doesn’t have huge black circles around his eyes.

He changes his voice to a more comforting tone, the one he uses to convince unruly patients to just listen to him. “Kirk, you need help.”

Evidently the fight in Kirk hasn’t been lost yet, and he once again goes to speak. Phil holds up a hand to stop him, channelling his years of dealing with difficult patients.

“Kirk. Healer Pierce called me. I know everything.”

The exhaustion must be catching up with him, as it takes a moment for Phil's words to register. Phil can see the exact moment that panic takes over as Kirk realises just what ‘everything’ means. Phil's glad he’s aware enough that he can work out that much for himself, as the walls aren't thick enough to talk about his bondmate without letting the cat out of the bag.

“Listen, Kirk, I’m going to give you two options. One: You tell Captain Pike and get some help. Or two: I tell Captain Pike, and you get some help. Whether you like it or not, it’s going to happen, and trust me when I say, if I have to tell Pike, rather than you, he’s not going to be happy.”

After he’s finished, Phil waits. He can see Kirk weighing up the options in his mind, Phil hopes he makes the right choice. He wasn’t lying when he said that Chris would be angry if he heard about this from anyone else. He’d not only recruited Kirk, but he’d taken him on as a mentee - the betrayal would sting.

When he eventually decides, Kirk’s voice is so quiet that Phil has to strain to hear it. “Alright. I’ll go tomorrow.”

“Now.” Is all Phil says, not quite shouting but firm enough to let Kirk know that he won’t budge. Kirk must have expected it, as all he does is sigh in resignation and trudge to the shoe rack to jam his feet into a pair of beat-up trainers.

Phil opens the door for him and ushers him out before he can change his mind. McCoy is perched in the same place Phil was, and as they leave the room he stands up and grabs Kirk's arm. Phil doesn't know if it’s in support or in an attempt to stop Kirk from running but he does notice how Kirk relaxes as soon as McCoy's hands are on him.

‘Definitely bonded.’ He thinks, glad that he’s walking behind the two and they can’t see the look he’s sure is on his face.

Kirk must be significantly sicker than he’s making out to be, as it takes them almost ten minutes to walk down the stairs and exit the building. He hadn’t noticed it when Kirk was standing still, but walking behind the two cadets means that Phil has a front row seat to Kirk’s instability. If it wasn’t for McCoy’s grip on his arm, Phil’s sure that Kirk would have either ended up going into a wall or collapsed on the floor by now. It concerns Phil enough that he pulls out his tricorder and starts to scan Kirk.

The numbers are not good, and he’s already forming a list of all the medical supplies he’s going to need. First and foremost being a counter-suppressant, though from the readings it looks as though Kirk hasn’t been entirely stupid this time around.

‘I might just let that wear off on its own.’

They have to stop for a moment just outside the building. It’s almost 7 pm, and under the light of the sunset, Kirk looks even worse. Phil spares a glance at McCoy, and it seems as though he’s noticed the pale, sickly glow of Kirk's face as well.

“Let’s hurry this up.” Phil says. He sends a prayer and hopes Kirk doesn’t collapse on their way to Chris’ office, which, fortunately, is not that far away. Phil does not want to be the one to explain this to Chris.

---

Chris had been sitting in the same uncomfortable chair for the past nine hours, and based on the amount of work on his desk, he’s not getting home anytime soon.

‘Why did I put off doing cadet review paperwork?’

He’s just finishing up Cadet Wilderman’s review when there’s a sharp knock on the door. Chris looks mournfully at the coffee pot in the little kitchen in the corner of his office and debates whether or not he can make whoever is coming to see him wait long enough for him to grab a fresh cup.

Before he can make a decision, the door to his office opens. Just as he’s about to reprimand whoever thought it was a good idea to barge into his office, uninvited, he catches sight of his best friend. The reprimand dies in the throat, just like the greeting he was throwing Phil’s way as the door opens wider and Chris spies Cadet Kirk and McCoy loitering just behind Phil. Kirk looks like he’s not slept in two weeks and gone four rounds with a Klingon. Chris rather suspects that had McCoy not been holding him up, Kirk would be a puddle on the carpet right about now. He sighs and glances at the clock. 19:15.

‘God, it’s much later than I thought.’

Chris clears his throat. He can already tell that this is not going to be good. “Doctor Boyce, Cadets. What can I do for you this evening?”

Chris watches as Phil gestures to Kirk before turning and parking himself on the little sofa up against the windows.

Kirk and McCoy both step forward so that they’re standing just in front of the desk. McCoy takes one look at Kirk before dropping the grip on his arm and taking a small step back.

‘Why am I not surprised this is about Kirk?’

It’s quiet for a moment, Phil and McCoy keep glancing between himself and Kirk but not offering anything up themselves. Chris wonders how long he should wait before breaking the silence himself.

'Yeah, definitely not getting home anytime soon.’

“I-” Kirk starts, and just as abruptly stops, he flicks his eyes to Phil. Chris raises an eyebrow.

“Kirk, if you don’t tell him, I will. Remember that.”

‘Well, that doesn’t sound ominous at all.’

“I-” Kirk starts again. “I’d like to request a transfer to Special Housing?”

‘What?’

That’s the last thing he expected Kirk to say, and he doesn’t sound very sure of it himself. Chris was expecting him to say that he’d been in a fight, or that he’s struggling with his course load, not that he needs to be in Special Housing. From the look on Phil and McCoy’s faces, they weren’t expecting him to say that either. Kirk may screw around, bend the rules to his liking, but there is no way he would request Special Housing unless it was absolutely necessary, which raised a very interesting question.

“Why do you need to be transferred to Special Housing?” Chris keeps his voice level, but he’s dying to know what’s going on.

Kirk makes several attempts to speak, but the words just aren't coming out. As more and more time passes, Kirk just looks more and more distressed. The whole thing is slowly ramping up Chris’s concern; he needs answers sooner rather than later. Eventually, Kirk gives up trying to say anything more; his shoulders slump, and from Chris’s seated position he can see that Kirk’s nose is starting to bleed. Just as he’s about to stand and suggest that Kirk sit down, he grabs a PADD out of his pocket, turns slightly and makes an aborted step towards Phil, PADD and arm outstretched in his direction. The turn makes him stumble, and Chris is out of his seat before he can even think. Showing quick reflexes, McCoy manages to grab Kirk and gently lower him to the floor while Phil has jumped up from the sofa and managed to grab the PADD just as Kirk loses his grip on it.

Chris turns to Phil.

Seeing that McCoy is taking care of Kirk - ‘Are they in a relationship?’ - he makes his way to Phil’s side, where Phil is quickly scanning and scrolling through the PADD. Clearly, this is new information to him.

Talking softly so that the two cadets on the floor can’t hear him, he speaks to his best friend. “What’s going on Phil?”

Phil looks up once at Chris before going back to the PADD. He responds just as softly. “I got a call from Healer Pierce yesterday. Turns out Cadet Kirk is one-quarter Betazoid and has been trying to hide it. It’s reached a point where he can’t do that anymore, and his empathic abilities are severely affecting his health.” At that, they both turn towards Kirk. McCoy has found some tissue from somewhere and is cleaning up the blood dripping from Kirk’s nose. Worryingly, it looks as though it’s starting to drip from his ears as well.

Now, Chris is a Captain, and as such is prepared for anything and everything thrown his way.

Except for this, apparently.

Chris doesn't know how long it takes to get his brain back online, staring at McCoy and Kirk sitting on the floor, but when it does, the first thing he notes is that it’s almost 9 pm.

‘Christ.’

“Ok.” He says to no one in particular.

Chris walks back to his desk, but doesn’t sit down. He grabs his comm and punches in a number he knows by heart. It takes a moment for the call to connect.

“Hello. Chris, why the late-night call?”

“Jonathan, I’m sorry to bother you so late, but I have a bit of a situation here that can’t wait and a favour to ask.” There’s a pause before the reply comes.

“What is it that you need?”

With the agreement of help, Chris takes his seat, exhaustion suddenly pulling him down. “I have two cadets here who need a double room in Special Housing stat. I need it mostly off-record until we can sort it all out” There’s another pause, a longer one this time as Jonathan tries to work out where this is going (and who could be involved).

“Leave their names off, and put the request through as high-priority. I’ll approve it myself.”

“Thanks, Jonathan.”

Chris does as requested, and as soon as he presses submit, he receives a notification that it’s been approved. Jonathan must have been waiting by with his PADD.

‘Good, it means no one else should have seen the request.’

He’s about to ask Phil what happens next when a beep comes from his PADD. He doesn’t need to look to know it’s Jonathan asking what’s going on.

For now, he ignores it.

---

It’s barely thirty minutes later that Chris is leading McCoy, Kirk and Phil into a double room on the top floor of Special Housing. Fortunately, they don’t have that many cadets at the moment who require the rooms. Usually, it’s first-year cadets who fill up on-site Special Housing. By the time they move onto their second year they are granted permission to live off-campus with the rest of the cadets. Starfleet owns and runs quite a few buildings in the area that cater to species with mental abilities. Special Housing on campus is more of a temporary solution until people can get their bearings (and abilities) accustomed to Academy life. It’s also used as an overflow when the Academy has guests.

Unlike the standard dorms, rooms in Special Housing are significantly more welcoming. This particular room is one of the more luxurious ones; it’s open-plan, and probably three times the size of the dorms. The front door opens into a spacious living room, big enough to accommodate a two and three-seater sofa (some species thrive off of social events, so the rooms need to be big enough for that). At the far back of the living room, backed up against the wall of windows (again to accommodate various species' needs to light) is the kitchen, separated from the rest of the room by a breakfast bar. On the left, the room's floor level is raised slightly, and a double bed sits in the middle, wardrobes and chests of drawers on either side. A small door by the bed leads to what Chris knows is an impressive bathroom, complete with an oversized bathtub.

‘God, why can’t my quarters look like this?’

It’s perhaps a tad too much when compared with the standard dorms, but when you have to take into account so many different species individual needs then it’s just easier to make one over the top room than make up a hundred different types of rooms and then not have enough when you happen to have more of one species than another.

(At least that was the explanation he was given when a night of drinking at Admiral Archer's place turned into a complaining session about how unfair it was.)

McCoy and Kirk make a beeline for the bed (which can be separated into two singles if need be, but Chris rather suspects that it will stay the way it is). Well, McCoy makes a beeline for it, dragging Kirk along for the ride. He trips once on the step up into the bedroom, but McCoy is more than able to drag him into bed, pulling the covers down and stripping Kirk to his underwear one-handed before tucking him into bed like a child. McCoy pulls out his tricorder and starts scanning Kirk in no time at all. It doesn't last very long though, Kirk somehow has enough strength to pull McCoy into bed with him and refuses to let go.

Phil takes over the scanning. Chris looks away.

As they walked over to the building, Phil had contacted a nurse at Starfleet Medical, asked her to get together a list of medication and equipment that Chris had never heard of before and couldn’t even begin to describe. Once gathered, she was going to drop it off at the front desk of the building for them to pick up.

Chris can’t help much with the medical side of things, so he puts his talents elsewhere. After picking up the medical bag and dropping it off with Phil, he wanders over to Kirk and McCoy’s old dorm room, swears the security guard to secrecy and starts packing up their things. It’s perhaps an invasion of privacy that wasn’t quite necessary, but Chris needs something to do rather than sit in that apartment while Phil does his job, thinking about how he could have missed all the signs.

Kirk and McCoy don’t have a lot of stuff between them, but it still takes a while to make sure it’s properly packed and labelled. Sometime around 1 am, Jonathan must have got bored of waiting for Chris to explain things and instead ambushes him in the dorm. How he tracked Chris down, Chris doesn't want to know. Between the two of them, it doesn't take long to finish boxing up all their stuff, but they don't move it just yet. Chris wants to wait for Phil to give the all clear first, and it’ll be much easier to move it all during daylight hours anyway.

After checking back in with Phil and asking him about the other two (who are finally sleeping), Chris ambles back home and falls into bed at 4 am completely dressed.

His last thought before he drifts off to sleep is: ‘This could only happen to Kirk.’

---

Jim’s floating somewhere between awake and asleep, on the softest bed he’s ever slept in, when the thought hits him.

The bond.

He needs to tell Bones, but just can’t find it in himself to break the silence of the apartment. He honestly doesn't remember much of the past few hours, only glimpses and flashes of emotion. Doctor Boyce had left not long ago after spending hours scanning him and injecting him with hypos. Jim would usually complain, but the floaty feeling he got from hugging Bones made it all seem unimportant. It’s not been this quiet in so long, and he just wants to soak in it for a few hours.

Bones must sense his unease though, as his grip on him tightens.

“What’s wrong?” He whispers into the shell of Jim’s ear. Voice rough with sleep.

“Nothing.” He replies. “I just-I need to tell you something.” Jim stops for a moment, unsure how to phrase what he’s going to say. Bones beats him to it.

“We’re bonded.”

Jim jerks in Bones’ hold. “What?” He struggles a little, wiggling around so that he can look at Bones’ face. “How do you know that?”

He sighs. “Jim, I’m not an idiot. I’ve suspected for a while, and confirmed it during the conference. There was a seminar about empathic and telepathic species, and how bonding affects how you treat them. Everything just kinda clicked after that.”

Jim doesn't know what to say, so he just says nothing.

‘Is that why he was so pushy when he came back?’

They sleep for a bit more before the chiming of the door wakes them up. Jim’s not facing the window, but he can see that the sun is just setting from the glow it casts on the wall. They must have slept for hours. The other thing he notices is that he and Bones are wearing Starfleet Medical Electronic Trackers (there was a failed attempt at an acronym a few years ago and the resulting blow-up from Medical made everyone extra cautious to call it by its official name and nothing else…).

Neither of them moves, they just let whoever is at the door in. It can only be two people anyway, no one else knows they’re there.

Both Doctor Boyce and Captain Pike walk through the door and come to a stop just outside the bed area. Jim feels his face get warm, both at how he’s let his mentor down and the scene he’s walked in on.

‘Maybe we should have got out of bed after all.’

Pike starts. “I’m glad you’re both alright.” He sounds sincere, but Jim’s abilities aren't up to figuring out if he’s hiding anything more.

Phil takes over before Jim can work himself up. “I received a call from Healer Pierce this morning. He’s managed to find a Starship headed back to Earth. He’ll be arriving in two weeks.”

Jim lets that sink in. He’s almost 100% positive that Pierce is the reason he is where he is. He doesn’t know if he should thank the man for getting involved, or curse him for it. A deep part of him acknowledges that he would probably be dead without Pierce, but another part of him can’t forget the horrors of the Betazoid Hospital.

Pike carries on. “For now, both of you are to stay here. Kirk, you’ve been excused from your remaining lectures. Doctor McCoy, you have been taken off clinic rotation. If you need anything, please just contact me or Doctor Boyce.”

Jim can’t see them, but he knows they just glanced at each other. He tenses in Bones’ arms, unsure about what is about to be said.

“Kirk, Doctor Boyce has managed to quietly amend your medical record to include all the missing information.”

At that, Jim starts to protest. He didn't give his file to them so they could do that.

“No arguing. We’ve managed to restrict access to almost everything, and you’re primary care provider has been transferred to Doctor Boyce with Doctor McCoy as secondary contact.”

Well, it’s better than he was expecting. He just hopes they only read the relevant parts. He does not need to be questioned right now about his childhood and teenage years.

“That’s all, we’ll leave you be for now.”

With that, they both leave just as quickly as they came. He and Bones don’t speak, just bask in the warmth between them.

‘Maybe things will be ok.’

‘I just jinxed myself, didn’t I?’