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Leonard sighed and rolled his shoulders, rubbing at the kink in his neck as he headed downstairs. Joce was making pancakes. He paused for a moment to inhale the smell before carrying on with a smile. The prospect of work aside, it was shaping up to be a pretty nice day.
He wrapped an arm around her waist as he got to the kitchen and pressed a kiss to her cheek as he passed her for the coffee machine. She threw him a wry smile over her shoulder. He passed by the fridge to double check on supplies and grab the milk.
“Remember, I put a few meals in here for the next few of days.” He said, reaching for a mug. He tended to be the chef in the house
“I can feed myself, you know.” She retorted. He poured himself a drink and hid another smile. “Pizza and fries still count as food.”
“It's almost like you want to eat junkfood and complain non-stop about the inevitable side-effects” He dodged the blueberry she aimed at his head and sipped his drink with a grin. She'd lived off junkfood through her final exams, and it had been a nightmare for both of them. Leonard had promised himself he wouldn't let himself be put through that again.
Right now though, Leonard had the dubious honour of being the surgical consultant on duty in the ER for a full week. Of nights.
His contract made it clear that he had to pull at least one shift every three months, in order to appease the hospital gods. They were usually full of drunks, or gang bangers, and he spent most of his time trying to hold organs in place long enough to fix someone. There were the odd, hilarious moments though. They usually made all the difference,
Night shifts were probably the hardest thing they had to navigate as a couple these days. Jocelyn had made senior partner six months earlier, and her schedule had only gotten tighter. When Leonard had to work nights, it couldn't help but strain the already dwindling time they got to spend together. Who'd have thought that a Lawyer and a Surgeon would struggle to find free time together? Still, they managed what they could, and they'd gotten better at making the time they did have count.
They'd had to decide, early on in their marriage and their respective careers, what they were and weren't prepared to sacrifice. When Leonard's father had fallen ill, it had made them really face up to the cracks that had been forming in their relationship. The illness had been long and painful, and had left Leonard without a father, and on the brink of being granted a divorce.
Since then, things had gotten better.
Joce poured herself a coffee and put a plate in front of him, sitting across from him at the breakfast bar. The pancakes were more like a late lunch at this point, but it was good to spend some time together. Their trouble had been almost a decade ago, and sometimes Leonard could barely remember the time passing. All he knew – all he needed to know – was that it had been a complete about turn.
–
Leonard sighed. He watched his team run the gurney away from the trauma room to get their patient upstairs. He ripped away his overalls and gloves, dumping them in the biohazard bin and resisting the urge to collapse on the floor. It had been a long shift, and all he'd needed was a triple gunshot in the early morning, with just an hour left of his shift.
This was why he hated nights. All the miscreants came out to play.
He rubbed his eyes, and took a moment to decompress, ignoring the blood soaked detritus scattered around him.
“Bones.”
His head jerked up, a compulsion he didn't remember having, his heart pounding in his throat for an instant. He glanced to one side, and for the barest of moments, he thought he saw someone standing there. But then he shook his head and he was alone again in the room. He growled at himself and walked out, letting the doors slam forcefully behind him.
He needed to get himself home, wrap himself up in Joce's favourite blanket and sleep for the rest of the day.
–
The next night, as Leonard left a patient's room, he glanced up from the chart he was signing to see a man standing at the other end of the corridor. He was dressed in gold and black, arms crossed and face blank. Leonard blinked, and when he re-opened his eyes, the man was gone.
On the fifth night of his shift, as he was straddling a patient, hands in the open chest cavity and palpating the heart. As they were rushed towards the elevators up to emergency surgery, he saw the man in gold again, watching from across the hall as the doors slid closed. He was gone from Leonard's mind before they even reached the third floor.
On the sixth night, he turned away from the front desk to see the man in gold standing by the ambulance bay doors. Leonard met his eyes, and there was something so painfully sad in his expression that made a nausea settle deep in his gut and he had to look away.
The last night of his shift was spent standing in another emergency surgery. He emerged from the room after fifteen hours, eyes sore and heavy from exhaustion. He didn't notice the man standing in the corner of the locker room as he hunched in on himself, head in his hands. For a moment, he thought he felt a hand against his back, but when he pulled himself up, he was alone in the dark.
He went home, tired and empty, and curled around Jocelyn on the couch. It had been a rough week, though he couldn't pin point the reason why it had been any worse than usual. He was just grateful for his wife's gentle touches, and the smell of the clothes detergent as she held him close.
–
Leonard was so done with children. Particularly children who felt their toys weren't interesting enough and who decided that garages and car parts were more better entertainment. He'd spent his entire afternoon running around the ER after a little brat who'd gotten his arm sliced open and elbow dislocated underneath his dad's vintage corvette.
It didn't help that he still felt off kilter, though it had been a couple of weeks since that night shift. Whilst he was mostly back to normal, there was still something nagging in the back of his mind. He'd tried to talk to Joce a little, but when she turned her attention to him, it suddenly felt so stupid. He'd shake his head and change the subject, and her smile would make things a little better for the time being.
“You're thinking too hard.” She'd reached up to smooth away the lines on his forehead with her thumbs, and he'd leaned into it with a sigh. He buried his nose against her hair when she pulled him close, and it had made him feel more settled.
He didn't have time to feel distracted now, with a handful of the back of the kid's shirt as he made to dart out of the curtained area without any dressing to his arm. Leonard sat him back down on the bed and glared at him, but the kid just grinned. His blond hair was all over the damn place and his eyes looked far too knowing for a kid his age. But he sat still enough, feet swinging as Leonard managed to cover and wrap his arm.
“I know someone who was a lot like you when he was your age...” Leonard muttered, absently.
“Really? Is he cool?” He looked up at the kid with a frown.
“Is who cool?” The kid rolled his eyes.
“Your friend, who was like me.” He pulled a face as Leonard stumbled for an answer. He only vaguely recalled saying anything, let alone why he said it, or who he was referring to.
“Um,” The image of the man in gold drifted into the back of his mind. He shrugged slightly, fetching the tape to hold the bandage closed, “Yeah, he's pretty cool.”
“Cool.” The kid smiled and Leonard let him get to his feet.
“How about you wait with me up at the desk for your momma to come get you?” The kid nodded and followed him. Leonard tried to shake off the uneasy feeling as he started filling in the rest of the kid's chart.
–
He couldn't see anything, but he could feel a pressure on his eyelids, as if something was holding them closed. Soft noises surrounded him, familiar things. It was like he was back at the hospital, only different. A little further away were the sound of footsteps. He felt something tighten in his chest, a little like panic. He couldn't push his eyes open, couldn't move his arms. The footsteps came closer--
Leonard woke with a start, jolting in the bed, suddenly too warm and tangled uncomfortably in the sheets. He took a couple of deep, steadying breaths before glancing at the clock. It was three in the morning. He pushed himself upright, trying to move away from the unease that had gripped him.
Jocelyn rolled over in her sleep. Leonard turned to watch her for a moment. His heart throbbed uncomfortably in his chest and he brushed some hair from her eyes, pressing a kiss to her forehead. He got up and left the room, heading down to the kitchen. His mouth felt dry from the adrenaline of waking up, his bones shaking a little as he steadied himself down the stairs.
He turned the corner at the bottom of the stairs and paused in the doorway to the kitchen.
“You couldn't just wait, could you?” The man in gold was sitting at Leonard's breakfast bar, a mug of coffee in his hands. Leonard could see his mouth moving, but his voice sounded far away. Part of him desperately wanted the man to look up, the rest of him was too terrified of it happening to speak up.
The man's eyes darted up and across the room, and Leonard's followed them instinctively. When he looked back towards the counter, the man was gone, but the coffee cup was still there. Leonard moved towards it. The ceramic was still warm.
Leonard snatched his hand away, panic rising in his chest briefly before he left the kitchen. He went back to bed, doing his best to forget about the man in gold.
–
It happened again the next night, waking with a jolt and a cold sweat. And again, he went down to the kitchen to calm himself, only to find the not-quite-stranger standing there, staring out the window to the backyard.
The thing was, the more times Leonard saw him, the less unsettled he felt. The guy may be a complete and total stranger, but he didn't really feel like one anymore. He stood there, back to Leonard, arms wrapped round himself, just watching. Leonard wondered, briefly, if he should step forwards, but then the man sighed and Leonard blinked, and he was alone again.
–
He still couldn't see anything, just like all the other times. It was almost familiar now. He still felt the wrongness of it all, but it didn't really scare him anymore – not until he tried to move himself, only to find himself completely frozen. Then the panic set in, but this time there was someone there to notice
“Bones, don't you dare!” And the voice felt like home and something inside him broke apart--
He woke more calmly than he had the first two times. He'd been having the dreams for almost two weeks, each one getting a little easier to cope with. His adrenaline had still spiked, but he didn't feel uneasy from them anymore. Now he felt more uneasy upon going about his day to day business.
He sat up with a sigh and rubbed at his chest absently. His mind was buzzing sluggishly with the quickly receding memories of the dream. It had been different this time.
He made his way down to the kitchen. After the second night, the man in gold hadn't been back. Something in Leonard's gut felt disappointed. The rest of him was just getting more unsettled. Over the last few days, he'd been hearing things – absent lines of conversations, mutterings, someone calling to him with a name that he knew from somewhere, but which didn't fit. If he was being honest with himself, he thought he was losing it a little bit.
When he entered the kitchen this time, something in him wasn't surprised to find the man in gold at the breakfast counter again. Leonard clenched his fingers briefly, remember the ache in his chest upon waking.
“You know, in some cultures, breaking and entering, and drinking a man's coffee is considered rude.” The man looked over, and a smile broke across his face. His eyes almost knocked the air from Leonard's lungs. They felt so much more real than he'd expected.
“What about incorporeal entities?” He asked, his voice still strained and distant – and Leonard realised that he was one of the voices that had been following him around.
“If my coffee disappears, the point still stands.” He rubbed at his eyes and poured himself a glass of water. He was so damn tired. He hadn't had a full night's sleep for a while now. “Why won't you leave me alone?”
The man watched him for a long moment, and Leonard had to look away. It was like being pried open and put on display, and he felt raw enough as it was without adding to it.
“Does this feel right to you?” He asked finally. “The house, the wife, the job? Does this feel right?”
Leonard paused. He put the glass carefully back on the counter, trying to hide the sudden trembling in his hand. He didn't look behind him to see if the man was still sitting there, just went though to the lounge and put the TV on low, forcing his concentration onto it.
Each time his attention drifted, he could hear the voices a little more clearly, the man in the gold shirt getting more distinctive. It sounded like he was arguing with someone. Leonard wanted to claw out his brain by the time the sun started to rise from the exhaustion and frustration of it all.
“Len?” He startled a little and looked round. Jocelyn was standing beside the couch in his pajamas and one of his Ole Miss sweatshirts. He smiled a little. “You been up all night?”
“Yeah, weird dreams again.” He lifted the blanket he'd wrapped round himself and she settled into his lap.
“Is it a stress thing at work? Is Anstein being a pain in the ass?” She slid an arm around his waist, and he couldn't have been more thankful for her presence. He still felt wrong, but she was at least something steady and familiar.
“No... I've just not been feeling myself lately. I'll be fine.” He sighed a little and closed his eyes, the voices he'd been hearing having fallen blessedly silent.
“Damn. I was hoping we'd have a reason to get out of next week's charity thing.” She sounded so put out that Leonard couldn't hold back a snort of laughter. He looked down at her look of displeasure with a smile and kisses her, welcoming the normality of it all.
–
Leonard never thought he'd see the day where he was grateful to be rushed off his feet and pulling overtime every night – but this week, he was. It may have been extreme, but at least it was normal for the most part. When he paused and took the time to think about it, it was like being pushed off balance, falling out of step with the world – so he didn't stop, just worked until he could go home and collapse.
He hadn't had any more of the dreams since that night with the conversation, and the man in gold hadn't appeared in his kitchen again. He'd only glimpsed him again once, midweek, as he'd run across the road to grab coffees and donuts from the diner. He'd just been standing there, on the street corner with a frown on his face. Leonard had very pointedly looked away.
Now he had a whole weekend off, and he wasn't sure what to make of it.
Jocelyn's firm was holding a charity mixer in the evening, and Leonard would be meeting her there later. She'd been called into work last minute for a case, leaving him to his own devices for the rest of the afternoon.
He'd spent most of it reading up on journals and the latest research papers, before making his way down stairs to fix himself a sandwich. Jocelyn's work things always had great drinks, but if a man went hungry, he would stay hungry for the rest of the night. Leonard had learnt that the hard way. The first time they'd attended one, they'd stopped at the all night diner down the road for fries and milkshakes of their way home.
Jocelyn had been wearing the most beautiful blue silk dress, which had clashed with the red vinyl of the booth, sipping at a chocolate-peanut-butter shake. But that had been a long, long time ago, back when they'd both first graduated, before his father--
“You seriously have no junk food at all? All I can find is chocolate spread.” Leonard felt his stomach drop at the sound of the voice, shaken out of his thoughts. He looked up to see the man in gold peering through the kitchen cupboards. Leonard didn't reply, just stood there with a growing sense of unease. It felt like the world was starting to peel away from him and unhinge. “What happened to the cereal? You know, the sugar coated stuff with the marshmallows...”
Leonard watched him rifle through a couple more cupboards before coming to a halt, pausing mid investigation. He seemed to freeze for a moment, and his light-hearted air suddenly soured.
“Bones, where's all Jo's stuff?” He turned and looked so genuinely confused that Leonard didn't know what to say. Something dark and insidious began creeping through his insides, up to his throat and silencing him, freezing him to the spot. The look on the man's face just made things worse with each passing moment.
“Please. Go, leave me alone.” He stammered, stumbling backwards and out of the room, almost scrambling back up the stairs and slamming the bedroom door behind him. His heart was pounding too quickly in his chest and he felt like his head might explode from the pressure building behind his eyes.
He squeezed them shut and slid down the door to settle in a ball at the bottom, trying to take deep breaths, to stop himself from throwing up or passing out. Each time he closed his eyes, he saw her, a young face just out of reach, on the edges of his vision – first a baby, then a young teen and all the ages in between. He felt his heart throbbing uncomfortably with each flicker.
Each attempt to shift away just bought on new onslaughts, a face he couldn't quite see but which made something in his chest ache. Haunting echoes of voices and laughter seeped through his mind like a fog and he couldn't shake it free.
He wondered if this was what going insane was like.
–
Leonard was almost an hour late for meeting Jocelyn, and from the look on her face, he wasn't in the best shape.
He'd spent half an hour dry heaving into the toilet, clinging to the porcelain as he felt his surroundings start to flake and peel, the girl's voice getting clearer and his own thoughts starting to deteriorate. He kept seeing the man in gold out of the corner of his eye, and the girlw ith the dark brown hair and gap-toothed grin. Everything had felt at an angle, and his hands had been shaking too violently to knot the tie so he'd gone without. He thought he'd regained some semblance of normality by the time his taxi pulled up, but apparently not.
Even now though, Jocelyn's hand in his and a room full of people, he could hear the ghost of laughter – the man and the girl, others, like there was an entire other world of memories hanging just out of reach. He tightened his grip on Jocelyn's hand and she moved closer to him, not questioning. He couldn't have been more grateful.
“Bones, please.” He caught a glimpse of gold from the corner of his eye and turned away, sipping his drink and blaming the tremor in his hand on the bourbon in the glass.
“Len, honey, are you alright?” Jocelyn drew him round to face her, pulling him a little further from the junior partner she'd been speaking to. “You don't look so great, sugar.”
“I'll be fine, I just forgot to eat before I left.” He tried for a smile, be he knew it was twisted in some sort of grimace. Jocelyn leaned in to kiss him gently, a hand to his cheek, and he closed his eyes for a moment to draw some strength from it. He willed himself to stop shaking, to hold it together for her sake.
She nodded and squeezed his hand briefly before leaving him at the bar to gather himself. Only moments later, he wished he'd followed.
“I'm sorry, I really am.” The man in gold was standing beside him, expression grave. He looked scared, and that didn't bode well for Leonard.
He shook his head hard and forced his eyes closed for a long moment as he stumbled away from the bar. He heard a little girl calling out and somewhere in the depths of his mind, he knew she was calling for him. He saw brown eyes and messy hair, but every time he tried to see her more clearly, the image skittered just out of view. The more he chased after details, the more the world tilted around him.
He could hear murmuring, could see heads turning, and Jocelyn moving towards him, but before she could get there a large, firm hand landed on his shoulder and he felt his knees buckle. He hit the floor moments before he felt himself keel to one side, his entire world gone mute except for one voice.
“Please, Bones, come on. You're so damn close. Please...”
–
The first thing he heard was the frantic sounds of hospital monitors, followed quickly by the more frantic sounds of people around him.
He woke as if he'd been thrust in a bath of cold water, gasping and lurching from his prone position, his body automatically fighting against the hands that moved to restrain him. Everything felt wrong. It felt sideways and out of sync. This wasn't his world, this was where he went in the dreams. It was so, so wrong and he wanted to go back to Jocelyn, to their house in Georgia, to the comfort and familiarity of it all.
“Leonard, calm down!” A strong voice broke through the clamour and he couldn't help but snap his eyes to the black man standing over him. He recognised that face, that voice. “Leonard, it's Geoff, you're safe, but I need you to calm down.”
The man – Geoff – kept his gaze steady, and before Leonard could stop his thoughts long enough to process it, he felt his body starting to slow back down to normal. He still felt too thin and frayed at the edges, but he knew he was going to be okay. He heard people talking loudly to one side, someone protesting, but he didn't look away, just focussed on Geoff and on slowing his breathing down.
“You're safe here, and you're fine. You went through some things, but I'm going to bring you back.” Geoff moved then, and Leonard glanced round at the rest of the faces. They were familiar, somewhere in the back of his mind, but out of reach for now. “Leonard, do you trust me?”
He couldn't quite find his words yet, but he nodded. Even though he'd never felt quite so terrified.
“I need you to sleep for a while. You've had a severe psychic shock. I'm going to give you something to help, but I'll be right here.” Leonard just nodded again and let himself be pushed fully back on the strange bed, eyes drifting up to the strange ceiling as something was pressed to his neck and he started to drift off.
–
When he woke again, everything was fuzzy. It was like he'd been dreaming something so bright and vivid, but the details had faded away. He was left with a strange, residual imprint of it all.
This time, on opening his eyes, he looked around himself and felt an intense wave of relief. It almost knocked the air from him, and he felt tears prickling at his eyes. He barely had time to wipe them away before Geoff let himself through the privacy screen. He took a long, hard look at Leonard before breaking out into a tired smile.
“Gods, is it good to see you again.” Geoff said. “You had us worried for a while.”
“What in the hell happened?” Leonard winced at the roughness of his voice, and Geoff handed him a cup of water as he sat himself up a little.
“That last away mission. Some alien mind-whammy knocked you for six in the middle of the discussions.” Geoff took the seat next to the bed and relaxed a little. Leonard watched him, trying to ignore the last vestiges of uneasiness that clung to his mind. “You were in there, but you also... weren't.”
“How long was I out?” Leonard asked, bracing himself for an answer he didn't want to hear.
“Close to a month.” Geoff's levity dropped at that. Neither of them needed to comment on how the atmosphere must've been throughout the whole ship. Leonard didn't need to ask how Jim was – and at the thought of Jim, he felt something drop in his stomach. Geoff snapped his fingers sharply in front of Leonard's face. “Hey, stop. I sent him to your quarters. He was exhausted, I told him to sleep whilst you were out of it again.”
“He kept turning up... only I didn't know who he was.” Leonard frowned a little.
“Commander Spock performed a kind of mind-meld between the two of you. We figured he was the best chance to reach you.” Geoff was observing him again, moving back into Doctor-mode. “What happened in there, Leonard? The last meld, he kind of just freaked.”
“He... mentioned Joanna.” Leonard swallowed, pushing back the vague, unsettling memory of that interaction and the aftermath. “She didn't exist. I'd been married for ten years, but Joanna didn't exist.”
Geoff nodded slowly, but his expression was sombre. “I'm going to run a full psych eval, but then I'm sending you home for bed rest. It'll be best for everyone to get you out of here.”
Leonard nodded and pinched the bridge of his nose. A slow, gentle need was tugging in his guts, but had been growing more insistent through the conversation. He didn't put up any opposition, just let Geoff do what he needed to do.
–
Almost three hours later, after having promised to come in for a check up the following day, Geoff had left him in the corridor outside his quarters. Leonard just needed a moment to collect himself. The idea of seeing Jim again had suddenly been overwhelming.
“Get over yourself, McCoy.” He muttered, clenching his hands briefly before letting himself in.
He wasn't sure what he expected, but a subdued silence wasn't it. No, that wasn't right, it wasn't quite silent. He could hear faint noises coming from behind the bedroom partition, and his feet carried him straight there. When he stepped round, his heart almost broke apart..
“Oh, hey, Bones. Sorry.” Jim was sitting up in bed, wearing one of Bones' old baseball tops, his eyes red and puffy from crying. Leonard had very, very rarely seen Jim cry. Jim apologised again. “Sorry, I think this all... It's just been a lot, you know?”
“I think so.” Leonard nodded a little, and sat awkwardly at the end of the bed. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but apparently not this. There was a distance spanning between them. Jim looked collapsed in on himself, too small and unsure. “Hey, what's going on?”
Jim shook his head and rubbed at his eyes again, plastering on an all too familiar smile that made Leonard narrow his eyes. Jim didn't try to keep it up, just slumped his shoulders a little.
“For a moment, we thought you were gone.” Jim's voice was flat. He lifted a shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “I just... we thought I could... You didn't want to leave.”
“I didn't know.” Leonard said, gently. Jim waved a hand dismissively. He looked like he was trying to gather his thoughts into something coherent.
“We tried a few times, but it barely worked, you were in too deep. I was running between the ship and the planet to negotiate with them to reverse it, but they said they couldn't.” Jim bit at his lip a little, staring at the thin stripes on the bedsheets. “We'd all sacked out for the night and then you came semi-conscious, only I didn't get there in time.”
“The nightmares?” Leonard asked. Jim glanced up, nodding.
“We waited for it to happen again and I followed you in and waited.” Jim paused. “Only I looked around and realised why you didn't want to come back. Why would you?”
“What?”
“Everything you had in there – the house, the job, the stability – I want that for you, but I can't give you it.” Jim looked a little frantic around the eyes, fiddling with the edge of the sheets, jaw clenching. “I started to wonder whether we should've just left you in there.”
Leonard was momentarily stunned, his heart thudding uncomfortably in his throat. Jim heaved a sigh. “I'm sorry.”
“For what?” Leonard watched Jim avoiding his eyes for a moment. “That wasn't my marriage in there, it was some ideal future scenario I thought would play out when I didn't know better.”
Leonard frowned, shuffling up enough to grab hold of Jim's hand and squeezed hard, a little bit frantic at the thought of Jim giving up on him. A knot of tension in his chest loosened a little at the contact, though. Jim's fingers shifted to interlink with his.
“You're right. That is what I want,” Jim's fingers flexed, “but not right now. Someday, maybe after the next mission, or the one after, I'd like to stay dirtside to research, or teach. I'd like to have a house with a yard, and space for Jo when she visits in the summers... And I'd kinda like it if you stuck around long enough to be there too.”
Jim was silent for a long time, just holding on to his hand like a lifeline. He could feel Jim's thumb rubbing against the back of his hand in circles. Then he squeezed it.
“You know what I want, Bones?” He looked up, face a little drawn. “I want a dog.”
Leonard studied Jim's face, the way the tension was draining out, his expression already softer. He smiled. “We can get a dog.”
“Yeah?” Jim raised his eyebrows a little.
“Yeah.” Leonard nodded, and let Jim tug him closer as he lay them down together. Jim ran his fingers across Leonard's face and leaned in to kiss him slowly. It was soft and a little lazy, but at that moment, he felt more real that he had in a long time.
The feel of Jim's body against his and the taste of his lips shook away the last dregs of uneasiness that had clung to his mind. He cupped a hand round Jim's jaw and let himself be pulled closer.
He might have spent the best part of the last decade traipsing around space after Jim, and it might not have been anything close to how he'd imagined his life playing out, but that didn't mean it wasn't better.