Title: The Day Leonard McCoy Died Fandom: Star Trek XI Pairing: Kirk/McCoy AU Rating: PG-15 Contents: Alternate

universe, slash in thought and deed Disclaimer: So not mine, even when they're playing pirates. Author's Note: Sequel to <a href="http://rubynye.livejournal.com/405368.html#cutid1">A Pirate's Life For Me</a>, and thus indirectly for the Kink Meme. <lj-cut text="Leonard&#39;s starting to get a little winded."> Leonard's starting to get a little winded. The weather is balmy by Terran standards, cool and dry and lightly cloudy, but the terrain has gotten hummocky and rough, full of little bushes and poky rocks, and he's only 3.75 kilometers from the shuttle. He really should be at least five away when it blows, or so said his demented Scottish friend, the man who helped him plan this stunt. He pushes himself faster, stumbling over grassy humps, and shakes his head at himself. It's taken Leonard over two years to get to the point where he's about to incinerate a perfectly good shuttlecraft and his precise bodyweight in cloned flesh and bone. Two years of dragging himself through an ordinary life, working in the dullest of clinics, staring up at the night sky and wondering if a sunny-haired pirate were still out there. He managed to thank Rebecca enough to satisfy his conscience and her concern, swearing he'd repay her the ransom; he's managed perhaps a third, but the life insurance he bought should pay her more than enough to make up the rest, once they declare him dead. As long as, of course, he does this right.

As long as he correctly wiped the shuttle manifest, as long as the fire obliterates the computer past recovery, as long as no one pieces together the smashed skull and realizes the face on it doesn't match Leonard McCoy's at all because it's an assemblage of vat-grown bone grafts. As long as no one comes looking for him. As long as the right man comes looking for him. McCoy's spent a lot of sleepless hours wondering if Kirk will show up. The message address Kirk taught him would only work once, was supposed to not work anymore if Kirk wasn't around to check it, and his email of this time and coordinates didn't bounce, at least. But there wasn't an answer, either. It was thirty-two days, over two years ago. Maybe Kirk has another pet captive by now. Maybe he's been apprehended or shot down since Leonard sent that email... He's gone over all the possibilities night by night until only brimming glasses of bourbon or rye could bring him sleep. But that sleep brought dreams, of the vast spangled blackness of space, of ragged little settlements where the undoctored colonists worked him half to death and kissed his cheeks and hands in gratitude, and most of all of Jim Kirk, his easy lope, his strong hands, his bright smile. It got harder and harder to wake from those dreams to yet another gray Earthbound day. Leonard looks up at the gray sky of a terraformed moon that's not Earth, thinks of the stars beyond it, and wonders with a barked laugh when he stopped being afraid of decompression and novel pathogens. No, he's still afraid of space's dangers, but at least out

there he'll be alive until he dies. His compass-watch beeps, surprising McCoy with the information that he's passed his five kilometer goal. None too soon; he goes five more steps before there's a flash and then a hellacious roar behind him. He thinks apologetically towards the shuttle and heads for a high hummock that makes a sheltered overhang, about twenty meters away. There, he hunkers down to wait amidst the tall grass, and thinks about how now he is officially dead. He's set himself reasonable limits, made a backup plan; if Kirk doesn't show up in twelve hours Leonard will head for the settlement that should be a week's walk from his location, give them a false name and a story good enough to get a job. There are all kinds of lives a man can build out in space. Maybe he can encourage Jim towards one that involves a little less violence and a little more construction. Maybe not. Assuming Jim comes for him. It was only thirty-two days, and they spent only seventeen of them fucking, really. McCoy shoves his hands in his hair and remembers that, the dark close warmth of Jim's bunk, the scents of his hair and body, the taste of his mouth and his throat and his dick, the feel of Jim strong and sleek and scarred in his arms, moving inside him, moving for him. Leonard pulls his knees up like there's anyone to see him and remembers Jim's face by starlight and the softness of his unguarded midnight voice, remembers everything he's hopefully running to. It's a rather brief eternity before Leonard's ears first catch the

whine of a ship's engines on the wind. McCoy stays put -- if this little dirtball has authorities efficient enough to investigate a shuttle crash so soon he doesn't actually want to meet them if he doesn't have to. He stays still, breathing shallowly, until he hears bubbling, non-official voices, and then one sharp piercing whistle. Then he stands up. Jim stands about fifteen meters away, hands on hips, a long new scar seaming his cheek, five of his crew behind him. The curlyhaired boy and the young Asian man with a pilot's headset are new, but Mirree and Tanisha and Zhukrak all wave to McCoy, calling out "Hello, Doctor!" He waves back absently. It's hard to see anything besides Jim striding towards him, just this side of a run. It's hard not to run himself, but he doesn't, and they get there soon enough and grab each other's shoulders. "Hello, Bones," Jim says, grinning right up until Leonard gives in and kisses him. Two years and more shrink into a dot of nothing as Jim hums happily into him, kissing Leonard until his head buzzes and his knees start to shake. When Jim backs off he hardly hears the crew hollering and cheering, hardly hears anything besides the pound of his own heart, barely sees anything besides Jim's smiling face. Leonard shakes his head, and lightly punches Jim's shoulder. "You've got a new scar." Jim grins proudly. "And a hell of a lot of stories for you, but right now let's get out of here." Leonard nods, and walks forward at Jim's side into his new life.