Worth It

Disclaimer: I don’t own Star Trek nor do I make any profit from this writing. No infringement is intended.

Author’s Note: I do not know much about TOS, so all of this is inferred from the newest movie. Please forgive if it is inaccurate with cannon and please forgive when it gets OOC as I’m sure it does. Happy Reading, T.H.

There was nothing comfortable about sleeping in a chair, Bones mused as he stretched his long legs and arched his back, moaning at the uncomfortable creaks and cracks his body made as he did so. He wasn’t as young as he once was, either, he admitted silently. It was harder now to sleep in a chair than it had been during his residency before he had been married and Jocelyn had complained about his habit of sitting up all night with a patients who had no one else to sit with them, hold their hands, pray quietly by their beds, let them know that there was someone there who cared if they lived or died.

“You’re married to me, Leonard! Not some random guy who came into your emergency room. I need you here! Don’t you care about how I feel at all?”

And he had. He’d cared too much about how she felt. He had never thought that a woman like Jocelyn would even glance in his direction. To be truthful, he’d been rather awkward with the opposite sex growing up. And not just the opposite sex. He’d been more than a little awkward with the boys his age growing up as well. He’d spent most of his early years studying hard to please his father and himself. He had wanted to be a doctor for as long as he could remember and had studied to make sure that it would happen. He hadn’t been fifteen when he began his studies at university, completed his undergrad in a year and medical school in three. Genius, they’d called it. Driven, those who knew him called it. He’d begun his residency at nineteen and it had taken him longer than it should to complete it because nine months into it he had met Jocelyn. She was the hospital administrator’s daughter and he’d met her at the first Christmas party he attended at the insistence of his superiors. He’d walked in to the hotel ballroom, uncomfortable in his new tux, taken a cup of the spiked punch and proceeded to hide himself in the corner. His intent had been to simply remain long enough for everyone to see that he had been there before making an unobtrusive exit. Jocelyn’s arrival had changed all of that.

The moment she walked in every eye in the room was on her. Jocelyn was beautiful and she knew it. She’d been at her peak that night with her golden hair swept up off of bare shoulders. The dress had been a deep shade of jade to accentuate her bright green eyes, but he had barely noticed it. He had noticed the eyes. He’d noticed them because they had landed on him right away and hadn’t left as she’d floated toward him as if on air. He’d barely been able to look up from his toes, feeling more like a boy instead of the man he had thought he’d become, when she had stopped in front of him. It had seemed to him as if the whole world had stopped. He hadn’t been able to hear anything for the sound of the ocean in his ears until she had cleared her throat delicately, making him jerk his head up in surprise.

“Well,” And she had smiled that perfect smile that made his palms sweat and his mouth go dry, “Aren’t you going to ask me to dance, Leonard?”

“How do you know my name?” He’d mumbled, looking everywhere but at her directly.

“I make it a point to know all of the attractive young doctors.”

“Still in my residency,” he’d protested even as she led him to the dance floor. His mother hadn’t been completely remiss in a classical genteel upbringing for him and he slipped into the waltz with graceful ease, a fact that made Jocelyn’s eyes light with what he thought at the time had been attraction. He knew now that it had simply been a light of cunning that this small skill would fit perfectly into her well conceived plans.

“Yes, but you won’t be forever,” Her voice had been low and as smooth as silk as the hand on his shoulder moved to cup the back of his neck and play with the curls there. He had meant to get it cut, but hadn’t found the time. He’d been grateful for that at the time. At the time seemed to preface every thought when he remembered Jocelyn. At the time, he had been enraptured with her when she had pulled him a little closer and whispered, “My father says you’re brilliant. He’s already pegged you as the next chief of surgery when Jeffers retires.”

The idea had made him proud and stroked his ego and he felt more confident in that moment with her than he’d ever felt with any woman, “What’s your name, darlin’?” He winced now when he remembered how he’d drawled out the sentence.

“Jocelyn,” She’d leaned closer, “How would you like to make it with me, Leonard?”

He’d choked a little at the thought. How could it be possible that this beautiful woman, this woman every man in the room was looking at with lust, wanted him to take her to bed?

“We can go to my apartment,” he offered breathlessly.

“Hmm,” she considered for a moment, “Too far. I noticed a conveniently empty coat room on the way in. Meet you there in five minutes. Don’t let my father see you follow me out.”

Then it had hit him. Jocelyn, his boss’s daughter, was eighteen years old to his almost twenty. He’d almost lost his nerve to follow her at all, but just as she’d slipped out the door she had winked at him in such a manner that all of the blood in his brain had headed south. He’d practically stumbled after her like a puppy after that. In fifteen minutes he’d been making love to her desperately against the door of the coatroom. It had been hot and free and the most liberating experience of his life up to that point. It was really no wonder that he’d fallen for her so fast or that he’d fallen so hard. After six weeks of romantic dates, hot nights filled with passion, and an ever growing need for her, he had proposed. She had accepted with tears in her eyes. A year and a half later they had been married in a lavish wedding paid for by her father just after he had completed his residency.

For a while things were good between them. She was supportive, loving, everything a good wife should be. It helped that she was still in school herself. She was gone from their home nearly as often as he was. He thought they were happy. Things had begun to change two years into their marriage when she had finished school. He had thought that after going to school she would want a career of her own, but that wasn’t the case. She was content to be a housewife. He was making enough money that it didn’t matter financially. They were very well off. She seemed happy decorating their home, joining her mother’s garden clubs, and with him. He was still a trauma surgeon in his hospital. At first it had just been little things. She wanted to see him more, spend more time with him. She asked him not to pull more than two double shifts in a week. She wanted to take an extended holiday in France. They hadn’t been away since their honeymoon. It had all seemed reasonable enough and he had been happy to comply. When she was happy it was like the sun in their home, light and free and easy. When she pouted, he could spend days with her not speaking to him, not even looking at him, and that tore him up inside. She began to complain about the fact that he would stay overnight with a patient who had no one else. She needed him! Didn’t he care? And he had. He had cared so much, loved her so much, that it had hurt to hear her accuse him of not loving her. They had begun to fight, bitterly, tearing deep gashes in each other that would hurt for days. It started to affect his work. He was distracted, had almost made a fatal mistake because of it. He knew things could not carry on as they’d been.

One night when it was just too much for him to bear any longer, when he was hurting so badly he didn’t have the strength to fight anymore he’d asked what had happened to them. Her response, with her arms crossed and her back to him, was that somehow all of the love was covered up by everyday things that they just couldn’t seem to get past any longer. She still loved him, but maybe love just wasn’t enough to sustain a marriage. He’d been desperate to find anything to keep her with him. So, he suggested that they have a baby. Maybe it would bring back some of what they had when they started. Maybe if there was someone else there who needed them they wouldn’t need each other so very much. She agreed whole heartedly, running into his open arms and kissing him as she hadn’t kissed him in months. Johanna had been conceived that very night. Their reasons for having her were the wrong reasons to have a kid and somewhere inside he’d known that. He’d even admitted it out loud to himself six months into Jocelyn’s pregnancy. Hell, he could hardly handle his wife. What made him think he could handle both Jocelyn and a kid? It had given him more than a few sleepless nights before the baby had finally come.

But, she had come. Nine months later, after a twenty hour birth that Jocelyn cursed him all through, there she was. Ten fingers and ten toes, her mother’s platinum blonde hair, and his mouth. Her eyes had been a cloudy blue when she was born, but they had changed over the next six months until they matched his own. She was the most perfect, beautiful little thing he had ever seen. He wanted to sit on the bed and share his overwhelming joy over how small she was, how perfect, with Jocelyn, but she had barely taken a look at Johanna before rolling to her side and falling asleep. It should have been an indicator, but he had been so enraptured with his daughter that he’d chalked it up to a long labor that had exhausted her. The first time he’d held Johanna in his arms he had sworn to himself that nothing would ever hurt her, that nothing would ever come between him and his baby. She was the absolute best thing in his life, coming before saving lives even. Perhaps he should have stopped to wonder where his marriage was on that list, but he never had. The next five years had been the best when it came to Johanna. He had taken joy in every little thing she did from walking to her first words to the first time she rode her bike. It was the simple things that made him fall more and more in love with his little girl every day. But, Johanna had been the only part of his life that was going right.

He had tried to fool himself once again into believing that things got better after Johanna was born. He was happier, but that didn’t mean Jocelyn was. She began to resent both him and Johanna for the bond father and child shared. The fights had started again, worse that before. They’d only increased when he had made head of surgery. He turned a blind eye the first time Jocelyn had gone into someone else’s bed. Perhaps she was right. She needed more than he was giving her. He loved her enough to not complain. He ignored every subsequent affair and his own unhappiness in favor of keeping Johanna’s life some semblance of normal, trying his hardest to make sure that their fights never reached her. After six months of ignoring affairs he realized that it wasn’t that he loved her enough to look the other way, it was that he didn’t love her at all anymore and just didn’t care what she did. But, he’d been afraid. Because no matter what she had done in their marriage Jocelyn had the financial means, through her family, to raise Johanna right and didn’t have a job that would keep her away from the girl. If he filed for divorce, that would be all the court would see and he didn’t think he’d survive only being able to see his Funny Face every other weekend and holiday. He spent as much time at the hospital as he could while still feeling as if he was raising his daughter properly. The only time he saw Jocelyn was when they were fighting. He had been satisfied. He had thought he could live just that way. Then Sudhir had come into his life.

Sudhir did his residency at the hospital under Leonard. Leonard hadn’t intended for anything to happen. He hadn’t wanted anything to happen. He’d been attracted to Sudhir from the start with his curling black hair and nearly black eyes, but he had never intended to act upon his attraction. He found out, quite by accident, that it was mutual when he overheard Sudhir speaking with one of the nurses, gossiping with one of the nurses really.

“Dr. McCoy? Yeah, he’s married. To a real bitch, but I never said it. She’s the administrator’s daughter. They have a beautiful little girl. Johanna. Sweetest little thing you ever saw.”

“And is he happy in his marriage?”

“Good God, no! He’s not been happy for years. She cheats on him every chance she gets but he just takes it. It’s hard to watch. But he won’t leave her because he’s afraid they’ll take his little girl from him. He loves her more than anything. Real shame, isn’t it? The man’s practically perfect.”

“Aside from his rather abrasive manner, perhaps.”

“Yeah, but he wasn’t always like that. He used to be sweet, gentle, believe it or not. He’s gotten hard, unyielding, in these past few years. Except with Johanna. When you see him with her you see him how he used to be.”

“That’s something I’d like to see.”

“Oh, really? Got yourself a crush, Sudhir?”

“Shut up.”

It had been harder after that to keep his attraction to Sudhir to himself, but he had done it. For five more months, he had done it. He wasn’t ashamed that he was attracted to a man. Same sex marriages had been made legal over two hundred years prior and there was no general social stigma attached to homosexuality any longer. Of course, there were still some who believed it disgusting, but they were the same type of people who would still have segregation and would have stopped the space program to keep humans from meeting other species, so no one really paid much attention to them. Leonard had been attracted to other men before, so this attraction was nothing new. No, he hadn’t been ashamed of his attraction because Sudhir was a man. He’d been worried because he was more attracted to Sudhir, even though they’d never even touched, than he’d been to his wife in more years than he cared to remember.

It had all come to a head after a particularly intense surgery that Sudhir had assisted him in. Seven and a half hours spent bent over a car accident victim, fighting to keep him alive and then fighting to save both of the man’s legs. It was enough to make Leonard curse the nearly ancient style of transportation that were few and far between, but could still cause so much trouble when you put an idiot behind the wheel. In the end, the best possible outcome had been reached. The man would make it and, baring any unforeseen complications, he would keep both of his legs as well. Working beside Sudhir had been so natural. They hadn’t even had to speak while they worked. Most of the time it took years to develop that kind of bond in an operating room. While they were scrubbing down in the locker room, changing their clothes so that they could get out of the hospital before anything else happened, Leonard had turned to see Sudhir staring at him, his own shirt only half way on. Leonard looked down for a moment to see if something was wrong, but when he realized that the reason Sudhir was staring was because he hadn’t put his shirt on yet his eyes automatically jerked up to meet the eyes of the man he had wanted for months.

“Dr. McCoy…I…” Sudhir murmured. He paused for a moment and licked his lips nervously and that was what undid Leonard completely. Without a word, he took Sudhir by the shoulders and, after looking around to make sure that no one was there to see it, kissed Sudhir with all of the passion and want he’d stored up not loving his wife. He wasn’t aware of how they had gotten to Sudhir’s apartment, but the next time he’d really paused to think of anything at all, he was holding a thoroughly sated and warm lover to him on a mattress without a frame looking around at the cardboard boxes and the folding chairs that served as furniture in the studio space.

“Jesus, you really are in your residency, aren’t you? What do you do, sleep on a cot in the break room?” He laughed gently as he ran a hand over Sudhir’s back. The younger man laughed with him and snuggled closer.

“Sometimes. I could say the same for you though. You spend more time at the hospital than I do.”

“Yeah, but I have an excuse. I’m trying to stay away from my soul killing wife.” He took in a breath through pursed lips, “Sorry. Buzz kill. We won’t talk about her.”

“Good idea.” Sudhir had pressed a kiss to his neck, “But, I guess the fact that she is still your wife means you can’t spend the night?”

“Sorry, kid. No such luck.”

“Please, Len, you’re two years older than me and I don’t have a daddy fetish.”

Len began to laugh, a true deep laugh from his gut that he hadn’t experienced in years. Sudhir just grinned down at him, propping himself up on his elbow, pleased beyond words that he had been able to cause such a reaction in his new lover. When Leonard finally calmed down he smiled up at Sudhir as he wiped tears of mirth away, “Okay. Okay. I won’t call you kid.” His voice went from laughing to seductive in a beat and he ran a hand over Sudhir’s body from his neck down to his backside, “So, what do you think? Once more?”

“Why not?” Sudhir had rolled on top of Leonard and kissed him thoroughly. Needless to say, he’d been extremely late in getting home that night.

Leonard had been happier in the next six months than he had been in years. It was hard balancing working, spending time with Sudhir, and raising his little girl, but he managed it somehow. He fell for Sudhir slower than he fell for Jocelyn. He’d been more careful with his heart. But, Sudhir was so different from Jocelyn from the very start. Sudhir cared more for Leonard than himself, made him want to be better, a better man, a better father, a better doctor, and when they argued Sudhir never took personal shots at him designed to hurt. Leonard knew it wasn’t fair that Sudhir was his secret because he was afraid of what would happen if his wife found out and tried to take his little girl, but when Sudhir said he understood, Leonard knew he really did. Six months in and neither had said the “l” word yet, though he was feeling it. Was he ever feeling it. When he thought he could get away with it, he had brought Sudhir along on a trip to the park with Johanna. They had gotten on famously and Johanna had spent just as much time in Sudhir’s arms or playing with him as she had with Leonard. When he had seen the two of them, his dark lover and his blonde haired angel, laughing, their cheeks pressed together as he pointed out the ducks to her Leonard had fallen completely. He had resolved then and there that he was going to divorce Jocelyn. This was what he wanted for the rest of his life. He wanted Sudhir and Johanna and however many other little ones they decided on taking in. He wanted surgeries with Sudhir and long lazy days in the park. He wanted arguments that could leave them steaming and storming away only to come back later and take all of that passion to the bedroom and arguments that ended in the bedroom without the steps in between. He would find a way to keep Johanna with him. Jocelyn might not even want full custody.

“I love you,” he whispered to Sudhir as he carried a sleeping Johanna through the park as the sun was going down.

Sudhir had smiled at him sweetly, “I love you, too.”

“I’m going to marry you, Sudhir.”

“If that’s your idea of a proposal, Len…”

“Damn it, Sudhir, I’m trying to be serious here. I don’t always have the right words. I’m a doctor, not a romance novelist.”

“I know.” Sudhir had leaned in and kissed him quickly, “And I still love you despite that fact. I will marry you, Len. We’ll work it out. I have faith. I’ll see you in a couple of days.”

“Couple of… Right, the conference.”

“Exactly. I do love you, Len, and I’ll be back soon. Don’t do anything rash before then?”

“ ‘Course not. What do you take me for? Be careful? Still don’t see why you couldn’t have just taken a train like any other sane person.”

“Please, Len…” Sudhir rolled his eyes, “The trip would have been three days instead of three hours. You worry too much. I’ll see you in three days. I promise.”

But, Leonard hadn’t seen Sudhir again. The worst fear Leonard had ironically came true three days later when an unexpected lightning storm had taken Sudhir’s small shuttle down. There had been no survivors. In his grief at losing Sudhir and his chance to be happy in one fell swoop Leonard had gotten drunk and stayed that way for pretty much the next six months. One of the first nights, hell it might have been the very first night for all he knew, he’d been drunk and miserable enough to admit everything to Jocelyn. She’d filed for divorce somewhere in there. He’d been the most sober in those months when they were in court and the lawyer he’d hired had been good and tried his very hardest, but Jocelyn’s lawyers had been better. He hadn’t even gotten every other weekend with Johanna. He hadn’t gotten anything at all. Except for phone calls and vids, the judge had said. He could call Johanna all he liked and when he had cleaned up his act there would be another child custody hearing. But, the date had been a year. He was certain he would die without seeing his baby for a year and he hadn’t bothered to clean up his act. He quit his job before they could fire him, was living off of the savings he had put away to start his life with Sudhir, and was slowly drinking himself to death.

He didn’t know, to this day, what had possessed him to go to that bar that night when he’d been happily drunk in his own apartment for weeks, but that bar had turned out to be his salvation. As he had been working on his fifth or sixth of the night in the darkest corner of the bar, lit only by a half dead scrap of neon advertising some alcohol or other, Captain Christopher Pike had approached him with sympathy and a not un-fatherlike manner. After agreeing with Leonard that he fate had dealt him some rough cards but that he’d also helped fate make a mess of his life, he had taken his glass away and swirled the amber liquid around for a moment.

“Times like these, Dr. McCoy, a man’s got to make a choice. Does he quit, say it’s too hard, make every sacrifice anyone ever made for him completely worthless? Or does he get over what went wrong, dust himself off, and start again? Now, you could pick up this glass again, drink your life away. I won’t try and stop you though it would be a damn waste of a whole lot of talent. Or you can put the glass down, follow me, sober up, and head to the dry dock with me tomorrow to pick up new recruits. Starfleet always needs a good doctor. And if you clean up your act enough, serve on a ship for a five year, prove to the courts and to your ex that you can finish something, maybe, just maybe they’ll let you hold your little girl again.”

“By the time I finished the academy and a five year,” Leonard had scoffed, “She’ll be fourteen, fifteen maybe. She’ll probably hate me.”

“Chance you might just have to take.”

“What if…”

“Hey,” Pike had put the glass down in front of him again, “It’s not going to be easy, McCoy. I never said it would be and I never will. What I’m saying is that it’ll be worth it.”

Then he’d gotten up and walked away. Leonard had taken his glass back for a moment, looked at the liquor inside it, rolled his eyes and dropped the glass.

“Damn it,” he murmured, burying his face in his hands. For a moment the hot tears burned his eyes. Then, he blinked them back, stood and followed the path Pike had taken. The starship captain had been waiting for him just outside the door.

“Good man,” he’d commented with a smile, “Let’s see if we can’t get you sobered up.”

Two days later he’d met Jim and it had all been the start of his salvation. The kid was brash, entirely too arrogant for his own good, and couldn’t keep it in his pants to save his life. He was also one of the smartest people Leonard, now called Bones apparently, had ever met, beyond loyal to the people he considered his friends, and the most fun person he’d ever been around. They just happened to be roomed together, though he still wasn’t sure that Jim hadn’t managed to wrangle that somehow and in their first semester they’d studied hard and played harder. Jim never asked him why he only ever had one drink when they went out and he never volunteered the information. But he was glad that he was always sober even when Jim was at his worst. It kept them out of a lot of situations that could have turned very bad very quickly. At the end of their first semester he had gone back into that courtroom stone cold sober with his head held high, Jim at his back to show his support. The judge had smiled at him after looking over the summary of what he had been doing in the past months and granted him the right to have Johanna for half of the major holidays, half of the summers and whatever weekends he could get away from the school. And, bless her, his little girl was still young enough that she’d jumped into his arms and kissed him, telling him how much she had missed him. Jocelyn had done nothing but give him a frosty glare before sinking her teeth in.

“So,” She’d jerked her chin to indicated Jim, standing at the entrance to the courtroom, giving Bones, because that was how he thought of himself now, new life new name and all that, his space to reunite with his daughter, “Is he your new fuck toy?”
Bones had been so happy, holding his girl that he hadn’t even taken offence, even though he wanted to ask her not to speak that way in front of their daughter. Instead he’d just smiled at her, “No. He prefers women. Why? Were you jealous?” He’d laughed for the first time in a very long time when she actually squealed in her rage and stormed away.

They spent that first reunited Christmas together, he, Jim, and Johanna, in a hotel room, with silly paper hats, ancient movies playing on the vid screen, and all of the silly presents he had been able to buy on shirt notice. It had been perfect. And when they had gotten back to the Academy Bones had gotten drunk in front of Jim for the first and last time. He had needed the liquor to tell Jim the whole story. After he had, they hadn’t spoken of it again. But, something in Bones, the something that had begun healing when he was allowed to hold Johanna again, had finished healing that night. And he found the next time he’d been hit on, though was a little awkward about it, he’d been able to reciprocate.

Two years later Nero had happened and he found himself suddenly thrust into the position of CMO aboard a major starship. But, he couldn’t deny it. He loved the life. He missed his little girl, but they spoke almost every day. He loved the routine. He loved when the routine was broken. He loved that he was entirely in his element here in the black silence of space. Sometimes he loved it so much he even forgot they were in space at all and he was completely comfortable. Except for right now. He groaned again as he shifted in the chair he had spent the night it. He was older than he liked to remember sometimes, he mused. He should have just let Sulu stay like he had wanted to. But, the younger man had been plenty sore from the altercation on the planet’s surface himself and he had needed to sleep. Though the only way he had been able to get Sulu to leave was to promise that he himself would not leave Chekov’s side. And he hadn’t. Not once all night.

He stood now, stretched and looked down at Chekov. He could get his tricorder out, scan the young man, but he didn’t need technology to tell him what his own eyes and hands could. He lifted the bandage on Chekov’s chest. The shot that had been so life threatening the night before was beginning to heal text book well. There was no redness to indicate infection. He leaned closer and took a delicate sniff, knowing infection often left a tell tale scent, but there was none. There had been a high fever earlier that had led Bones to believe there was infection, but that had broken overnight. It was only then that he had felt secure enough in the young man’s recovery to let himself fall asleep, though he had kept his hand on Chekov’s wrist all night, assured by the steady pulse.

He pushed a couple of stray curls back from Chekov’s forehead and leaned over to kiss the smooth skin. He pulled back without a sound and closed his eyes, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He should have felt paternal, leaning down to kiss the kid’s forehead. He should have felt like a father comforting a sick child. But, he hadn’t. He hadn’t felt like a father when he kissed Chekov’s forehead. He hadn’t felt like a father the first time he’d seen the kid and his first reaction had been purely sexual. And he didn’t feel like a father now as he looked down at the young man who could give him pleasant chills and tugs at…well he didn’t want to think at what. Chekov was too young and Bones was not only his doctor, but his superior officer as well. There were regulations that had to be followed no matter how long it had been since Bones had felt the tugs he felt around the kid. The eighteen year old kid.

“God, I’m a letch,” he murmured. But, it was okay. It wasn’t like he was planning on acting on these feelings ever. He hadn’t even told Jim about his…God, was it a crush? That sounded so pathetic. He wouldn’t in a thousand years tell Jim. The man was his best friend, but he could keep a secret about as well as he kept his dick in his pants even now though they were in space and he usually stuck to his own rule about not sleeping with any of his crew. He was pulled out of his thoughts when Chekov let out a slight moan without opening his eyes.

“Chekov? Kid?” When the young man’s only response was another low, painful moan, he ran a hand comfortingly over his curls, “Pavel?”

The use of his first name seemed to get through to the ensign. He opened eyes that were filled with tears, “Hurts,” he murmured.

“I know,” Bones kept running one hand over his hair while his other was busy grabbing the hyposprays he’d need, “I couldn’t chance giving you something for the pain before you woke up naturally. You have a slight concussion. But, now that I know you’re going to wake up I can give you something for pain and something to make you sleep through most of it. Sound good, Pasha?” He tried not to wince at his use of the nickname he’d heard Chekov’s mother use when Kirk had put her on the main view to wish Chekov a happy birthday. Pavel didn’t seem to mind. He just nodded, keeping his eyes on Bones. The pain reliever made him relax automatically and Bones was glad to see the tears drying up as he administered the sedative.

“Good. You’re gonna be just fine, kid,” Bones ran a hand down Chekov’s arm and held his hand, wincing at how intimate the act felt. Maybe he was just reading too much into it. He began to pull away when he saw Pavel’s eyes fighting to stay open, but was surprised to find that the young man’s hold on his hand was still strong.

“Stay,” Pavel whispered when Bones looked at him, “Please.”

“You got it.” Bones settled back in the chair, refusing to wince as his sore back protested being in the chair again, and watched Pavel give into the medications. His eyes slid closed and Bones sat back, his hand still holding Pavel’s. Sometimes being uncomfortable was just…worth it. And wasn’t that was Pike had told him so many years ago? It wouldn’t be easy, but it would be worth it? He nearly smiled. He had a good life.

A/N: Reviews are appreciated. Please let me know if it is worth it to make it anything more than a oneshot. Thanks, T.H.