Emma - blog for fun, fanfic and more

The lights in the bar are dim. The crowd is noisy. It’s the kind of place that has sticky floors and good enough vibes to ignore them; a place that celebrates and mourns every tick of the minute hand.

Nothing could stop life from messily oozing out every breath in these four walls. Not even the larger-than-life presence of Earth’s mightiest heroes.

After the difficult mission they just completed, their first order of business is to feel something.

You’re surprised you’re here, an agent tagging alongside others who are admittedly more familiar with this environment. But Natasha and free cocktails are enough to persuade you. Before long, you’re on your fourth drink (or is it fifth? They’re surprisingly delicious), tracing people’s silhouettes to pass the time, trading the health of your eardrums to do so.

Everyone is outlined with red neon.

The bass thumps louder than your heart. It reverberates in your chest, almost replacing the organ entirely with song. There’s smoke emanating from a corner that paints the scene with ethereality you’ve only seen in blurry pictures from yesteryear.

As your eyes sweep across the room, you realize you’re not the only introvert who’s people-watching.

Person-watching would be more accurate: Bucky’s gaze catches yours all the way from the counter where he sits, like it usually does. Somehow it always does. His staring problem is for everyone, but that look is intended for you and you alone.

Around him are Sam, Steve, and a boisterous Thor, who gestures like he’s challenging everyone to one drinking game or another. As if the God of Thunder needed more booze in his system—regular alcohol barely works on him, and he’s loud enough as is.

Bucky, on the other hand.

Quiet, brooding Bucky looks handsome tonight, with or without the sensuous light: leather jacket, boots, metal hand coiled around a whisky glass. The devilish red that casts a glow over the room should be polluting his blue eyes, but they remain brilliantly clear as they pin you to the wall. Like he’s amused to see you rooted there.

You look back from the rim of your glass and take a sip.

Something in his face softens. Enough that you can tell, even from this distance.

Then a second later, you’re stolen by Natasha’s hand around your wrist. She leads you to the dance floor.

You’re not sober enough to say no.

The ground under your boots is sticky, and the air is thick with sweat, heavy with unthinking optimism.

Strange, because in the heavy throng of limbs, every part of you feels light as a feather—save for your chest. You don’t know if it’s your wild heart or the bassline it has melded with, but something within that godforsaken cavity tugs you to where your feet aren’t.

It leads your eyes to the bar where he is.

Where he watches you.

You don’t look his way again for the rest of the night.

Because it’s—he’s—a little too much to handle for the fragile organ caged by your ribs. Unlike him, you’re sure the alcohol has begun to influence your faculties, threatening your stoic mask to reveal something honest—and because honesty is the weak link in a professional spy’s chains, you avoid him.

Another drink is placed in your hand. Nat.

Time starts tunneling around your conscious by the time you down it.

Before long, the dance floor suffocates, the voices grate, and you awkwardly weave your way towards the exit for some air. Sobriety marks every step.

By the time you’re outside, everything’s muffled, and you feel the ring of silence in your ear for the first time in hours. Breathing in the cold air kind of stings, but it’s nice. It’s refreshing.

It’s peaceful.

You count your heartbeat to ground yourself to the peace you shed blood for.

Bucky makes himself known to you on count twenty-two.

“You alright?”

His voice cuts the silence. There’s concern in it. You turn to see him look at you, hovering in front of the doorway, and briefly wonder what you look like in his eyes.

“Tipsy and a little overstimulated,” the words tumble out, measured, but unplanned. There’s that honesty you tried so hard to evade, except you don’t feel like you’re out of control. The sensation is subtle. Realizing it isn’t.

Deep down, you’re okay with the truth—because it’s Bucky you’re telling the truth to.

And because it’s him who’s out here with you, of course he has your coat in a grip. He’s already wrapping the wool of it around your shoulders.

You look down, feeling the hem brush over your clothed thigh. The fabric almost moves in slow motion.

“Thanks, Bucky.” You slip your arms in the sleeves.

Without being asked to, he’s buttoning it up for you.

You struggle to recall the day the ice broke between you and him. For as long as you can remember, he’s always been kind to you, even if he’s quiet about it. Almost like he’d prefer to be a hidden hand, someone who takes care of things from the backstage, needing no reward nor recognition: a cup of coffee the way you like it, a hand pulling you up from the training mat, the warmth of a blanket when you wake in the common room, unaware that you even fell asleep.

It used to be a poorly kept secret. Now he’s being kind to your face.

Bucky’s fingers work deftly at the front of your coat, clasping three buttons down your chest—enough to keep you warm for the time being.

If the night had shadows, his would fall on you with how close he’s standing. You’re allowed a few seconds to admire the length of his lashes. It’s unfair how beautiful he is.

The thought reinforces itself when those blue eyes look back up at you.

“You’re welcome.”

He says your name like it means something. Or perhaps everything.

The feeling that comes after is split-second, crystal clear: you don’t want him to leave, not yet. So you open your mouth, hoping for him to linger, to replace the warm buzz in your system with something more potent—his attention.

His fingers fix your sleeve. It says the same want in your veins out loud, translated differently.

You smile. “Bet you aren’t drunk at all.”

He smiles back. “They tried.”

There’s a lie in the easy lilt of his voice. His eyes are glazed with a layer you’re all too familiar with. Intoxication. Not the kind induced by alcohol—he’s basically immune, thanks to the serum.

Maybe it’s whatever Thor had. You buy time. If you don’t know what he’s drunk on, at least you get to watch him a little longer.

“You know, Bucky, I’m surprised you’re even here.”

The single, soft huff of a laugh he lets out is so boyish, his face appears a decade younger. You think he looks more like the pictures they show at the Smithsonian: not free of his own share of cares, but carefree in his own way.

Innocent, almost.

Then the chuckle dies down. He looks at you like you hurt him, and a twinge captures your chest.

His thumb brushes your cheek and you stop breathing.

You swallow instead. His eyes catch your throat move.

The rest of his hand, large and callused, cups your jaw, gently directing you to keep looking up at him—to keep looking at him.

“I’m here because you are, doll.”

The small ‘oh’ of realization is hitched on his cheek.

What happens next isn’t a surprise, but your heart hammers loudly anyway.

He slants his face over yours, fast in closing the distance, but slow when he actually kisses you. He hovers an inch away for one second, two, then three—prolonging the final moments of not knowing your taste—before he gives everything up.

Capitulation comes after one shared breath, bated and stolen just as he slots himself into you.

You welcome him and this moment that’s long been part of your dreams, hands snaking up his arms. He wraps them around you, the hand on your face sliding to the back of your head as if counteracting an escape. Why he thinks you’d run, you don’t know. The tips of your boots scrape his.

He pulls away with a soft sound that has your lashes fluttering, and your body shivers in protest at the loss of him, but then he’s on you again.

Deeper this time. You return it equally.

When you steal a breath, it’s with a relief that echoes a Quinjet ride ago: the two of you were crouched behind a concrete wall waiting for the rain of bullets to die down. He held you close while frantically scanning your person, eyes darting from one vital point to another, making sure you’re okay you’re not hurt you’re alive—all things he didn’t say out loud.

The relief of kissing him is double what you felt coming out of that battle alive. The relief of him kissing you back is a hundred times more.

You sigh his name. It pulls a sound from his chest, something ragged that gets poured right into your mouth.

His fingers in your hair card deeper. You tiptoe into him. He holds you closer, steadying you.

While your lips lock again and again, you faintly register his fingers drawing shapes on your neck. You do the same. The lines don’t make sense. Just strokes that spell desperation, like a poor attempt at signing your lives away to each other.

The sidewalk is your only witness.

Around the precarious dance that is a relationship, there is a veil. It keeps people within it safe from pain, content with shallow affection, while those who pass through it are rewarded with a burning bounty of a lifetime.

For you and Bucky, it takes time for the veil to lift.

But time is a funny thing—stretching around moments, making them last longer than they should, then racing like the wind when it feels like it.

It’s been months since you last wore your own clothes to bed. Months since he first brought it up, never to speak of it again.

You look good in his t-shirt.

Since that night at the bar, you rediscover how attractive he is: not just in the devastation of watching his form lean against a doorway, or in the cyclical metamorphoses of his hair, but also in the absolute pull when he’s around. It’s what attractive means, isn’t it? And how natural it is to be swept away by the gravity of him—like a wave to his shores.

Thankfully he’s no different. Constantly circling around you when there’s more than enough room in the kitchen, fingers brushing yours in the simple pass of a coffee cup.

The dance turns into a spin soon enough. Its centrifuge glues you together.

Limbs tangle in the dark, repeating the same dance under bedsheets and morning light. He whispers honeyed words into your ear while you say his name and monosyllabic words. More. Please. Yes. He eats them up one by one, tongue in your mouth, before moving to some other place that drools just as much.

Your body isn’t really yours anymore by the time hipbones kiss—but you’re happy to surrender it to him.

The hands that ruin you also put you back together with the help of warm, running water. They make you toast the morning after. It turns out a little burnt. You tease him about it.

What you get is the most earnest look on his face when he says: “You’re so distracting.”

Time spent with him teaches you of a force that was once foreign. It’s the same one that drives poets to ink and paper. The same one that keeps the two of you answering battle calls.

Somewhere along the way, the reason you risk your lives is whittled down into a singular point: each other.

It doesn’t matter what kind of fight it is—the kind with bullets or with words. You and Bucky will always end up side-by-side, breathing shared air. Air that reminds you where you are, why you are.

Repaired. Alive. Together.

It’s always these vulnerable moments that fuse your souls.

You like sharing a bed with him. It’s where you exchange pasts in whispers. Hold hands in the darkness. Look up at the ceiling and pretend you’re stargazing, what with how small you feel when faced with a primordial thing that’s doomed many who dared seek it.

The emotion hangs heavy in the space between your bodies—even if there isn’t much.

Even if it’s just four letters wide.

He murmurs into your cheek one night.

“…you’re my best friend.”

A pang hits you between your breastbone, so clean and unmistakable you almost gasp.

Instead, you squeeze the hand that wraps around your naked waist.

“Steve would be pissed if he heard that,” you hum.

He smiles, face in front of yours, gaze lingering on your features like he doesn’t have them memorized already. You feel warmth without touch: on your cheek, your nose, your lips.

Then he looks up, and you see eye to eye.

There’s never a time when you’re not on the same page, and tonight’s the same.

It just feels different.

Tonight, you’re bound by ink carved on a line. It writes out that four-letter word and closes the gap between you forever.

Neither of you say it. Neither of you have to.

The gunshot is strangely quiet.

You don’t hear the shouts, or his body hitting the ground.

Like a movie that’s lost its sound, everything is silenced when your eyes widen at the scene: he’s ten feet in front of you, falling backwards at the impact of a bullet that sinks right into his chest.

Except it’s not a movie. It’s real. The threat is known to everyone on that battlefield, screamed through the comms. Comms that you’re connected to—that he’s connected to.

He just decided to put himself in front of you.

There’s no ringing in your ear, no rapid pump of your heart. Just dust and a growing hole in the bottom of your gut as you leap towards him despite your weak legs. Your lips part, but there’s no scream. No words.

Not yet, at least. Not until you fall on your knees next to him, hand on his chest—peeling it away, you see blood.

Blood that should’ve been yours.

Your eyes lock. His begin to close.

Then the words spill.

“Bucky, baby, look at me, look at me—” you choke, putting pressure on the wound.

Life doesn’t stop gushing from under your palm. The comms blare—Sam, Nat, everyone—but despite being in your ear, they all sound so far away.

Bucky’s head sways to look at you. You don’t like the effort in that small movement: like he’s giving everything to show you he’s listening.

You scream for a medic. You don’t recognize your own voice.

“Hey,” he husks, the complete opposite of your desperation, too weak to be a good sign.

It sounds like acceptance.

Your vision cuts to a Bucky in the same position, bathed in blue. Laid down the same way in front of you, except he was on your lap: a scene from some morning that feels far away. The Bucky in your memory moves his lips—his voice carries the same kind of rasp as waking up…

Morning, sweetheart.

…or going to sleep.

“It’s okay—” he continues, but the tail end of it is sputtered out and your breath stops, too. Unlike the blood that still trickles out of him. The warmth sends a chill in your soul.

There’s wetness dripping onto his dirt-marred tac suit, darkening the Kevlar.

One drop, then two.

You only realize you’re crying when he thumbs at your cheek.

Again, your consciousness shocks you.

It pulls you further back this time: to a cold night, a sidewalk outside a certain bar.

He touched your cheek that night. Just like this. It was the first time he ever did it.

The first time he kissed you.

“No,” you shake your head, voice cracked. “No, you can’t, you don’t get to—”

He smiles up at you, but you barely see him past the tears. His hand—the flesh one that’s shaky and turning cold—cups your jaw.

You hold it there.

He buttoned your coat with these fingers.

“I love you,” he rasps. His breath sounds thin. “I’m sorry it took this long.”

“I love you, too,” you cry, “so much, Bucky, d-don’t—you’ll get to say it again, please—”

He shakes his head. In defiance, you kiss him once, then pull away…

…just as he mouths those three words again. Voiceless this time.

His blue eyes slowly grow cold, but the smile doesn’t fade.

As if he wants to keep looking at you, even if he’s dead.

Time won’t fly. It keeps you hostage, paralyzed, feet frozen while the rest of the world moved past you.

Before long, you’ve lost him longer than you had him.

When the month of his passing rolls around, you realize just how much pain you’re feeling.

It starts right as you wake. The first deep breath doesn’t relieve you. Neither does the second.

You step out to the kitchen and smell toast. Burnt. Three seconds later, you realize it’s just a figment of your imagination.

You haven’t made toast in a long time. Not since the sight of bread sitting on the kitchen counter tricked you into thinking he was home: how silly, the way your knees lost their strength when you remembered, how you broke down on the tiled floors right then and there.

It’s never really quiet anymore. You swear you hear his voice. The sound of his laugh after every joke made with the hopes of lifting your spirits.

Sometimes, when you’re on the way home, you think he’d be there.

You’d open the door, and he’d immediately launch into a complaint about running out of detergent so soon after the last grocery run. Halfway through the rant, he’d pause, and really look at you. Then he’d scoop you in his arms, kissing you: one peck on each cheek, then a big one on your lips.

“But I’m okay now. My baby’s here.”

Sleeping with the night light on makes you think he’s sitting next to you, reading. You threw the thing away immediately.

A million nights after, alone in the darkest dark, you still see his eyes.

You close yours. Sleep comes eventually, but not before the tears.

You wake up with an aching, hissed-in breath.

The sheets are warm, much warmer than you’re used to. In the daze of slowly dispelling slumber, your skin tingles, wondering if the heat is an oncoming fever or the morning weather being very unusual.

You feel a draft. It makes you realize that you’re no longer under the covers. The air gently kisses your bare shoulder and thigh.

There’s something different in the beat of your heart. It pulses in your ear. Steady. Healthy. Like it’s ready to take on the day instead of encumbered by it before it even began.

Then your next inhale doesn’t hurt, and you know something is different.

“Morning.”

His rasp widens your eyes, and you turn to see his.

Blue, but warm. Awake.

Alive.

The sight of him hits you like a mallet on a bell: the first pang hurts the most, but the pain doesn’t stop echoing. Its impact is unending, witnessing his smile like this. Like nothing ever happened to him. Like he never stopped breathing.

Waves of emotion course through you unrelentingly, one feeling after another. Disbelief, longing, relief that cycles back to the shock of him—until you realize the sheets under your head is damp with tears, and Bucky looks at you with concern wrapped in softness.

“Hey, hey, what happened?”

He takes you into his arms like he has a million times before, yet you melt like it’s the first. The tears seep into the edges of his white tank top, near his collarbones. You don’t care. He doesn’t seem to mind. Never did. Instead, he coaxes your head closer to his body with a large palm and strokes your hair, cooing sweet words at you.

“Ssh. It’s okay, honey, you’re okay.”

It takes a while, but when your choked sobs finally slow, his fingers cup your jaw, gently guiding them up to look at him.

“You gonna tell me what’s wrong, baby?”

Your lips part. What’s wrong?

“Everything,” you breathed, and his brows knitted. The crease of it is like a familiar song. Unbidden, your fingers lift to trace its shape, his face, the parts of him you knew by heart until your heart was the only place he truly existed.

He tightens his hold on you.

Your whisper shakes even through his grounding touch.

“Bucky, you died.”

He doesn’t say anything. Not at first. Not until after you take him through the whole thing with barely-words that stutter the dream out loud: the mission that went sideways, the bullet that hit his chest, how you can still recall the sound of air that he struggled to keep when he finally said those three words.

Remembering makes you cry again, but he doesn’t stop you, just holds you through it. A large palm on your back draws calming circles, fighting against your body’s subtle tremors. Then a thumb on your cheek to wipe the tears away.

“—I was so scared, you were gone, you did it for me—and—” you choke, before swallowing a breath and willing your voice to stop trembling. “…I still am. I’m still so scared, Bucky.”

He kisses you before he speaks. Once on your brow bone, another on your crown, then three down your temple, cheek, and jaw. You count each one and memorize what the brush of his lips feels like.

You used to think he’d kiss you all the time. Now you know those kisses are numbered.

Just like his days are. And yours, too.

“You know,” he begins, as quiet as parting clouds, “it will happen one day.”

Death.

You look up at him. “That’s why I’m scared.”

Like he’s admitting a secret, he presses his words into your ear with another kiss.

“I’m scared, too.”

When you part, his eyes shine. The dawn begins to break. The sun’s first rays shine through the windows, illuminating him as though they owe him a personal favor to make him look even more beautiful.

And he does look more beautiful. You don’t know how that’s possible.

“But I love you,” he says, “more than I’m scared of losing you. That’s why we’re here. Together. Right?”

He is right. So you nod. He smiles, thumbing your lower lip. Then, with the innocence of a child and the touch of a lover, he asks:

“Say it back for me?”

And yet his mouth is already on yours. You close your eyes, returning the kiss. There’s no choice but to feed your reply into him.

“I love you, too, Bucky.”

An alarm blares, high-pitched and sharp, and you open your eyes.

You wake up for a second time.

There’s no warmth when you wake. No Bucky. Just the cold, hard reality that the morning slams you into.

But this time, you’re not numb to it.

You cry.

You’ve dreamed of him too many times. Memories, mostly. That night you sat and stared at the sea together. Him walking around your room barefoot. A corny joke. His voice.

This time, it’s a dream with him, not just of him. A new scene designed to torture you, a fragment of what could have been.

Strange—the Sorcerer Supreme, not the adjective—told you about the cosmos once.

He talked about how it works. How, like a thread, it’s made up of much smaller fibers, infinite yet equally important to the whole. Many, but one. How each holds a reality—one that is as real as the one you’re living in.

How dreams are mirrors to your other lives in the multiverse.

He’s alive, your thoughts scream as you sob into your hands. Just not here. Not now. Not with you.

It’s been a long time since that bullet plunged into his heart and stopped it. Everyone’s already talked about him in past tense.

Everyone except you.

Because he’s not here anymore, but you hear him, see him, feel him.

Because he’s not here, but you are still in love.

It would have been perfectly reasonable to say something, to question the number and necessity and nature of his visits. You were no doctor, but even you knew the monitors probably hadn't changed drastically between every reading. It would have been perfectly reasonable to ask him why he was back again, for the third time, and you probably would have received a perfectly reasonable response.

The question was right there. Ready and waiting.

You stayed quiet.

You stayed quiet because yesterday there was an almost-kiss that had changed everything. Yesterday he had seen you writing your resignation letter and, instead of nodding and moving on like perhaps anyone else on this ship would have done, he had pulled up a chair. He'd sat down, told you that Jim Kirk wanted you on this ship, on his team, followed by ‘and so would I’ in the deliberate way that left no room for misinterpretations. He’d wiped away a tear on your cheek, the tear that threatened to be first of many and held all the emotions that your resignation letter did not, and he'd leaned in. You had followed. He'd been so close, so close, it would have been easy for you to lean in further, bridge the gap, to make the almost-kiss an actual-kiss and then, and then--

You blinked, conscious of the reddening of your cheeks.

You glanced over at McCoy. He was still reading the monitor and, mercifully, completely unaware of where your mind had just been wandering off to.

Get it together, you told yourself, trying to keep your breathing steady so the monitor didn't give him something different to read.

Just ask him why he’s back.

You clenched your fists.

Three visits in thirty minutes is not normal. Not. Normal. Just ask--

"I need a blood sample," he said, not looking away from the monitor and not seeing your mouth was open and poised to speak. "Just to check the trace elements of the mineral have gone and there's no toxin remaining." He was already reaching for the kit on the tray. "Small scratch. Won't take a moment."

You closed your mouth and looked at the wall over his left shoulder.

His fingers found your arm, and there it was: the same soft touch that had stopped you from hitting ‘send’, the same warmth against your skin that had been at your jaw not twenty-four hours prior.

Your breath stalled in your throat.

His thumb found the vein in the crook of your arm and he applied the device with a subtle click.

You risked a glance his way. His focus was entirely on the sample collector. Not on you. Not on why your cheeks were red and why your heart was racing behind your ribs.

The sample vial filled in less than ten seconds.

“All done,” he said, capping off the collector and labelling the vial.

"Mm," you said, finally letting go of the breath you’d been subconsciously holding onto.

“Results won’t be long,” he said with a nod as he slipped the vial into his breast pocket. "If the trace elements have gone, we can start talking about discharge timeline.”

Ask him. Ask him now.

Your mouth opened, but what you wanted to say didn’t arrive.

“Okay.”

McCoy nodded once, turned and walked away.

You watched as he crossed the bay to where Chapel stood, said something to her in a low tone that didn't carry, and didn't look back.

He's treating you like a patient.

You stared, glassy-eyed, at the back of his head.

Nothing more.

Did… Did the almost-kiss from yesterday mean nothing to him?

Was it something he was trying to ignore? Forget? Was he burying himself in his work and pretending it never happened?

Your arms wrapped tightly around your middle, the way they did when your brain was enthusiastically running away with its thoughts with no plan on stopping.

Maybe… Maybe you should forget it ever happened, too.

That would be easier.

Slowly, you curled down on the biobed and shut your eyes against the morning light, surrendering to the vulture-like thoughts circling through your head.

McCoy’s next visit never came.

Instead, it was Nurse Chapel who appeared around the curtain at 1130, wearing the usual soft smile she saved specifically for bedside visits.

"Good news," she said, pulling out her PADD. "Everything looks normal on your bloodwork. No signs of the mineral or the toxin." She looked at you over the PADD, her smile growing. "Which means you can get out of that bed."

You looked at her. "Now?"

"Now," she nodded. "We'll take it slow, five minutes or so, just to begin with." She set the PADD down and moved to your side. "Doctor's orders."

Doctor's orders, which meant McCoy’s orders, which meant…

Had he sent Chapel deliberately so he didn't have to come back?

There was no time to overthink this thought because getting out of bed was, unsurprisingly, harder than you remembered. Chapel stood beside you, her hand at your elbow as your bare feet made contact with the cool, panelled floor of the medbay. Your legs wobbled a fraction as they took on a weight they'd not had to deal with in well over a week.

“Steady,” Chapel said quietly, her hand settling against your elbow.

“I'm fine,” you said, almost automatically, and you stood up a little straighter.

Consciously, you lifted your right foot, and took a step. And another. And another after that. Every step you took felt steadier, your body remembering how to do this rather than learning how to do this. In minutes, you had passed the end of the biobed and made it half way out into the open medbay.

“Good,” Chapel said at your side. “Really good. How do you feel?”

“Alright,” you nodded. “A bit unsteady at first, but that's gone now.”

“Great,” she said, one hand still at your elbow. “Let's take a break, just to let your body rest. Don't want to overdo it,” she added, gesturing back towards your biobed.

You nodded, then glanced quickly down the medbay.

McCoy’s office door was closed.

“Where's Doctor McCoy?” you asked, casually, breezily, with absolutely no reason for Chapel to read into it further than necessary.

Her facial expression suggested she might have been reading into it.

“Paperwork,” she said, also casually and breezily. “Do you need something? I can get him to--”

“No. No, it's fine, thank you.” You put on your best polite smile and focused on the remaining ten steps to the edge of the biobed.

“Well,” Chapel said, pulling out her PADD to make a quick note as you sat down. “From now on, you don't need permission to leave your bed. If you feel steady enough, you can get yourself up. Walk around, stretch your legs, it'll help build up your strength.”

You smiled at that. “Really?”

“Absolutely,” she replied, tucking the PADD under her arm. “Stick to medbay, though, so help is always nearby.”

You nodded. “I will.”

You utilised your newfound freedom wisely throughout the rest of the afternoon, taking slow and gentle strolls around the medbay, meandering past empty biobeds and packed equipment stations and monitors on standby.

On your third stroll, your directionless feet took you past McCoy’s office. The door was open, the inside of the Chief Medical Officer’s personal workspace open for all to see.

Your feet slowed.

The office was empty. You knew it would be; you’d seen him leave the medbay on an errand twenty minutes earlier, and caught the conversation he’d had with Nurse Chapel about it close to your biobed. I’ll be back shortly, he’d told Chapel. Comm me if you need anything, he’d said. Chapel had given him the briefest of nods before he’d walked through the parted medbay doors and out into the corridor beyond.

You hovered at the edge of the doorframe. This was his private space. His office. He could be back at any moment. You should leave, carry on walking. Go back to bed. Or something.

Glancing up and down the medbay to make sure Chapel and none of the med techs were watching, you stepped inside.

The office was a compact space, made to feel even more compact by a large shelf along one wall which was stacked with actual paperback books. A ventilation pipe ran down the wall behind his desk chair, from which his personal medkit bag was hung. The desk itself was strewn with paperwork, seemingly with no particular organisation to anyone except the office’s occupant, pens of varying colours lying on top. To one side of the desk stood a framed display. You reached out to turn it, and saw the display was cycling through old photos; an elderly couple waving jovially at the camera, a farmhouse, a boy on a bicycle being chased by his dad…

As you watched the pictures, something silver flashed in the corner of your vision.

Your head turned.

The insect from the planet. Still in the same container you had dropped it into before shoving it into Spock’s hand, sitting on top of a cabinet to one side. Still dead, all six legs curled upward and wings sprawled against the base of the container. The stinger that had pierced your suit and skin still very much visible, sharp and pointed at the rear end of the creature.

Your leg throbbed just looking at it.

A range of emotions welled within you from seeing the specimen again. The anticipation and excitement before the mission commenced. The awe and wonder watching the insects in their habitat, discovering the new mineral. Before it had all gone wrong, before the hive had collapsed when it had met the end of your coring tool. Before you had put everyone at risk and nearly got yourself killed.

You failed to notice the approaching footsteps.

“There you are.”

You spun around, heart jolting in your chest.

McCoy stood in the doorway, PADD still in hand. The moment you turned, he appeared to realise what he'd said and cleared his throat. “Nurse Chapel said you were walking laps of the medbay. Didn’t realise that included my office, too.”

“Sorry,” you said quickly, “I’ll just…”

The sentence you started went absolutely nowhere as his eyes lingered on you for a moment too long.

“It’s fine. I tend to leave it open,” McCoy said calmly, moving around you to place his PADD on the desk. “A locked door and a medical emergency are never really a good combination.”

You saw him glance over at the silver insect in the specimen container.

“I see you’ve been admiring your little friend, there.”

You scoffed. “The friendship is one-sided, I can assure you.”

That earned a small huff from McCoy, which could almost be classed as laughter.

He perched on the edge of the desk before he spoke again. “Did anyone tell you what eventually saved your life?”

You shook your head. “No?”

“Well, I’m sure Spock’ll fill you in on all the scientific aspects. But the long and short of it is, your little insect there caused all kinds of problems.” His eyes glanced once again to the unmistakably-dead silver insect in the container. “The stinger not only delivered a toxin into your bloodstream, it also introduced the mineral too. The uncatalogued one. The one that was present throughout the planet’s environment.”

“Oh,” you said, eyes wide.

“Yeah.” McCoy folded his arms. “Spock managed to analyse the mineral composition. Said it was organic, mostly proteins or something.” He shrugged. “And then, after I pressed him on how we could get it out of you, he said enzymes might help.”

You nodded slowly in understanding. That would make sense, biologically-speaking; enzymes could bind with a substrate to alter molecules and clear toxins. An unknown mineral primarily made up of proteins would be particularly susceptible to enzymes designed for digestion and metabolism. You'd seen this biological reaction in the worms from the last planetary survey.

Something in your head clicked.

“Don’t tell me…?”

“Yeah,” said McCoy, smiling slightly. “Toxicology created a formula using your space worms, after you told me their bioluminescence was from digestive enzymes.”

You stared at him, open-mouthed. For a fleeting half-second, you were back in the corridor outside the lab, amazed at how he’d even remembered the worms at all. Now here you were, amazed that he had not only remembered an insignificant detail about the earthworms, but he had used it to create a medical treatment which had, incidentally, saved your life.

“Wow. That’s-- I’m impressed,” you managed eventually.

McCoy gave a subtle nod, his gaze turning back to the specimen container.

A steady silence fell, the conversation coming to its natural end.

You should've probably headed back to your bed.

Instead, you opened your mouth.

“Listen, uh,” you began, trying to piece together the words you wanted to say. “About yesterday, I shouldn't have… It was, it was inappropriate, and, I mean, we can just forget it ever--”

He stood up from the desk, looking at you intently.

You felt your cheeks growing hot. “Sorry, I probably shouldn't have brought it up. I'll just…”

You made to turn away, feet moving in the direction of the medbay.

His hand came up. Settled against your upper arm, radiating warmth, firm yet gentle. The touch lasted for barely a moment, but it was enough to make you stop, enough to send shockwaves pulsing through your skin where his hand made contact.

“Don't leave,” he said softly, quietly, barely a whisper. “Don't. Just…”

You looked into his deep, hazel-brown eyes, trying to read him and coming up with nothing.

He spoke again, mouth barely moving as he spoke in the same low, whispered tone.

“Don't leave Starfleet.”

You stared.

“Please.”

Jaw slack and mouth hanging open, you blinked once, twice, until your brain caught up with itself and his words actually contained meaning. He was asking you to stay. After everything. All the accidents, all the medbay visits, all the reasons you had that made you want to leave, he was asking you not to. Begging.

Your gaze dropped. “I, um…”

“Don't tell me you already sent that letter,” he sighed.

“I haven't,” you said quickly.

The relief in his expression was visible.

“Okay, that's… That's good,” he nodded slowly, taking a deep breath before he spoke again. “Are you still going to…?”

You bit your lip. Truthfully, you hadn't made a decision about whether to quit Starfleet yet. There had been too much going on, too many other things occupying bandwidth in your brain that meant this rather important choice had been pushed down the priority list.

“I don't know.” You gave a slight shrug. “Haven't made up my mind yet.”

His eyes went behind you briefly; to the medbay, quiet and unassuming through the open door. Then his gaze turned back to you. There was a look on his face - a line of tension along his forehead - that suggested the brief glance away had been the moment he’d made a decision and he was about to act upon it.

You saw his hands disappear into his pockets, in an almost identical movement to the way they’d disappeared before he’d worked up the nerve to ask about the worms in the corridor. A moment which felt like a lifetime ago.

"Coffee," he said. "In the mess hall. It's, it's actually not half bad.” He paused. “Don't get me wrong, it's no French Press, but it's decent. Palatable."

He caught sight of your expression and appeared to swiftly rearrange his thoughts.

"Well. You probably already know that." His hand found the nape of his neck, then dropped. "But I was wondering--" He quickly cleared his throat. "--if you'd like to go grab coffee. Together. Sometime." Another pause. "If you don't have any better plans, that is. And that’s okay if you do," he added. One hand left his pocket and lifted a fraction, open-palmed, gesturing that the offer was on the table and the choice of whether to take it was entirely your own.

You didn’t need any time to consider it.

“I don’t,” you replied, a smile spreading to the corners of your mouth. “Coffee would be great.”

Coffee with McCoy turned out to be not coffee at all.

The cups had sat there, mostly untouched, on a table tucked away in the far corner of the mess hall, gradually cooling and losing steam as you both talked and talked and talked. Several hours passed by as topics of conversation flowed naturally between you; anecdotes from your childhood and his med school days, who your friends were back home, his family, hobbies, favourite foods and least favourite foods. Crew members filed in and out around you, the tables becoming occupied and then unoccupied, until eventually the room became very empty and noticeably quiet, the mess attendants beginning to reset the hall before the next meal service.

He glanced at the chronometer on the wall. “We should probably head back. Chapel will be… Well, she’ll be fine, she always is. But I don’t like to make a habit of leaving her to run the medbay alone.”

“I understand,” you said, rising to your feet and picking up the almost-full cup of cold coffee.

“Well,” he said, smiling softly. “This has been…” The words trailed off as he looked at you.

“Yeah,” you said, returning the smile. “Thank you. Bones,” you said, quietly adding his nickname, which felt more appropriate for the moment than simply McCoy.

“Leonard,” he corrected. “Leonard is fine.”

You nodded once. “Thank you, Leonard.”

He walked you back to the medbay after that. Slowly, at your pace, which was the speed of someone still in recovery from a significant away mission injury and who was lucky to have any pace at all. There were certain things you noticed as you walked; the way he was, apparently, a gentleman about turbolifts - waving you in first, activating the panel himself, like he had been raised to show old-fashioned southern courtesies. The way he dropped behind you in the corridor to let crew members pass, his hand coming to your lower back in the same movement. The way you quietly wondered whether anyone else had noticed the turbolift or the control panel or the Chief Medical Officer's hand at the Chief Botanist's back. The way everyone who passed you had their eyes forwards suggesting they hadn't.

Just normal things you noticed about the man who had been nothing more than a senior doctor at the beginning of the week and who was now, after one coffee date, seemingly becoming something more.

There was a second coffee date the following evening, and a third the day after that, by which point you had both decided - without verbally stating it - that coffee was no longer required to maintain a conversation. It had become easy to be around him, you noticed; yes, there were still butterflies in your stomach every time you walked out of the medbay with him, but once you'd sat down and asked him how his day was, the butterflies settled into something that was less nervous and more relaxed. Perhaps it was his voice that settled your stomach, the way his accent turned more southern whenever he talked about something that he was particularly passionate about.

The same southern drawl came at the end of the third coffee date, before you both passed through the parting mess hall doors, only just loud enough for you to hear whilst ensuring his voice didn't carry.

“I want to do something special next time. Not just coffee,” he muttered softly. “Next shore leave is a while off yet, so it would have to be something here on the ship. You got anything in mind?”

You'd thought about this for a brief minute, before making your suggestion.

“How about the observation deck?”

Something had moved across his face. A subtle, yet visible blanching, eyes widening for less than a split second, jaw working, brows pinching with a tension that hadn't been there before.

In a blink of an eye, all of it was gone.

“Sure,” he'd said, and the smile he wore looked somewhat strained. “If that's what you want.”

Your eyes had narrowed. “Are you sure? Because we can--”

“No,” he'd said firmly, hand coming out to gesture you through the mess hall doorway first in the gentlemanly-like way you were now no longer consciously noticing. “The observation deck will be fine. Pick you up tomorrow at eight.”

You were fully discharged the following morning. Leonard had worn a full, professional, I'm-your-primary-care-physician-and-nothing-more look as he’d signed off your paperwork; two weeks off duty, then a phased return to the lab if all went well.

Nothing about his look hinted at what was to come later that evening.

It did not suggest he'd be standing outside your quarters at 1959 in smart-casual civilian clothes, holding a bunch of flowers he had, by his own admission, needed the help of Ensign Franks to pick from the greenhouses, having stood and looked at them for a full ten minutes with no idea where to start.

You’d pretended your cheeks weren't burning hotter than a solar flare when you'd taken them from his hands before leaving your quarters.

The observation deck on the USS Enterprise was right at the very top of the primary hull, above the bridge. It was a modest room, neither large nor small, built around a wide curve of floor-to-ceiling windows. Four cushioned armchairs faced the glass, and a drinks replicator stood off to one side. At this hour, it was completely empty, the room silent save for the usual low rumble of the ship drifting through space. You often came here on rest days; mostly for the peace and quiet and the ability to read uninterrupted, but the view was the room's selling point. Collections of planets and stars and galaxies twinkled in the vastness of space that lay beyond the ship, and the colourful hues of a nebula just a few thousand kilometers away gave the room a soft, amber glow.

You rushed over to the window. Being up here always sent a thrill of excitement through your veins. The view always changed with every visit you made, and today was no different. You spent several long minutes mesmerised by the nebula, the clouds of dust and gas towering upwards, the edges wispy and the centre bright.

Sensing that Leonard wasn't nearby, you glanced back over your shoulder.

He was hovering behind an armchair, quite possibly as far away from the windows as possible. His hand was clenched over the back cushion of the chair, and even from the distance, you could see his knuckles turning white.

“What's wrong?” you asked.

He shifted his stance, looking slightly uncomfortable. “I, uh… I suffer from aviophobia. In basic terms, that means fear of dying on something that flies. At one point, it got so bad, I avoided windows entirely,” he added, glancing quickly at the curved glass behind your back.

“Oh?” you said, a pang of guilt shooting through your stomach.

“Yeah.”

You were about to apologise for your ignorance and suggest heading back to the mess hall instead, when he cleared his throat.

“You're probably wondering why the hell I even joined Starfleet or why I said yes to a five-year deep space posting with a phobia like that.” He let out a small, nervous laugh. “Well, I’ll tell you.”

Your eyes tracked him as he moved beside the chair, his hands finding his pockets as he took a step closer.

“When I enlisted, I was newly divorced and down on my luck. Had nowhere to go, no other options. All I had was my doctorate and a crazy idea that maybe this was the fresh start I needed.” A pause, followed by a short sigh. “Aviophobia can be rough. Every second of every day, my mind would come up with a hundred ways this could all go wrong. Not a single day went by without wondering if that was the day I was going to crash into the sun.”

He took another step forwards, eyes falling to the floor where the amber hue from the nebula cast its orange glow.

“But lately, I've realised a few things. A lot of things, actually.”

Another step forwards.

“If I hadn't joined Starfleet, I wouldn't have been assigned to the Enterprise. I wouldn't have said yes to this deep space mission. I wouldn't have met you.” Another pause as his eyes lifted, gazing straight into yours. “And meeting you changed everything.”

He closed the distance, stepping beside you at the edge of the window.

“I boarded this ship a broken man, still holding on to my fears and my past. That’s all still there, but now it’s buried beneath something else. Something bigger.”

Finally, his hands left his pockets, and he turned to face you, the amber light of the nebula crossing his face.

“It’s you. It’s always been you, and I’m done pretending it isn’t.”

One of his hands brushed your own, fingers slowly intertwining with yours.

“Because if I'm going to crash into the sun, I'd rather do it with you than do it alone.”

Something inside you broke.

That same something had been breaking apart for a while now. It had cracked at the sight of him standing in the doorway to your quarters holding flowers. It had cracked when he'd almost kissed you in the medbay. It had cracked when he'd pulled out his old-fashioned stethoscope to read your blood pressure and it had cracked the moment you'd collided with him in the hallway on the way to the mess hall for chicken pot pie.

“Leonard McCoy,” you said, voice also cracking from the way you were falling apart inside. “That's the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me.”

A small smile crept into the corners of his mouth.

“Nah,” he replied, edging even closer, one hand coming up to trace your hairline with his fingertip. “Just how I feel.”

His fingers descended until they found the edge of your jaw, thumb brushing your cheek.

Your chin tilted upwards. Involuntarily. Pulled by a force that wasn't gravity. Dimming your world so there was only him in it, here, alone with you, in the observation deck with only the stars watching.

No interruptions. Nothing to pull him away this time. No room for wondering and what-ifs. It was happening this time, for real.

Slowly, your hand slid up his chest, fingertips touching his collarbone, feeling every heartbeat and every breath beneath your palm. You could see every crease in his forehead and every freckle on his cheekbones, the way his eyes lowered to your lips and the way his head began to drop slightly to the right.

And then you couldn’t see anything at all because your eyelids had fallen shut, surrendering to the moment.

When your lips finally touched, stars exploded behind your eyelids. Leonard was so gentle, so tender, he followed your lead like the moon follows the sun. Your mouth opened, tongue brushing his bottom lip, tentatively exploring him. And he responded almost immediately; his tongue met yours with a hunger held in check, never demanding anything more than you were willing to give.

Yet you wanted more. Needed more.

Your hands found his collar, pawing at the nape of his neck, drawing him in as the kiss deepened. Distantly, you heard a low sound catching in his throat in response, serving only to spur you on. Your arms were fully wrapped around his shoulders now, fists balling in the fabric of his jacket, your teeth catching his bottom lip as the kiss unfurled into something with more hunger, more drive. His response to this was perfect; his hand found the curve of your hip, sliding around your flank to your lower back in one effortless movement, close enough to the hem of your shirt that, if he’d wanted to, he could have slipped beneath it.

The thought of that possibility made your knees weaken, stealing the last remnants of breath from your lungs in a soft, muted whimper.

You felt his mouth slow, and at last you broke apart. Slightly breathless, slightly giddy, you clung onto him like he was the only thing in the universe that mattered. His palm was still at your back, forehead coming to rest against yours, as though he was unwilling to let go and let the moment end.

For a long minute, you both stood there, catching your breath in each other’s embrace.

Finally, Leonard spoke first.

“So, is this… I mean, are we…” He still sounded breathless, chest rising and falling as he searched for the right words. “Is there a ‘we’?”

“Yeah,” you said softly, unable to hold back a grin. “There's a ‘we’.”

He pulled you into him then, wrapping you up in his muscular arms. You went willingly, tucking your head beneath his chin and letting yourself sink into the warmth of his chest.

“I'm staying,” you said quietly, the out-of-context statement mumbled to his sternum.

“Hmm?”

“In Starfleet.” You lifted your head slightly, so the words were clear. “I'm not quitting.”

You felt and heard the deep, contented sigh that filled the space behind his ribs. Then his arms tightened around you, pulling you in even closer.

A low rumble came from within his chest. “Knew you weren't done yet.”

You both stood there for a long time, in each other's warm embrace, the soft light of deep space casting through the windows to the empty observation deck. Neither of you looked at the chronometer because the chronometer didn't matter. All that mattered was you, him, and the stars beyond beyond the glass, slowly rotating at the frontiers of space.

At a later date, when the events of the last week or so had settled firmly into the past, you would reflect back on that particular away mission to the planet with the unknown insects and the uncatalogued mineral as one of your department’s more significant scientific discoveries.

Spock had given you a full overview of his analysis into the mineral and its structure, which you had listened to with a keen fascination. Further tests and additional fieldwork carried out by your team in the Botany lab had pinpointed the mineral as the key for sustaining life on the planet; the proteins were responsible for building, repairing and maintaining all biological material in the ecosystem in a symbiotic relationship, just as you had theorised. The elevated concentration levels of the new mineral within the insects had remained a mystery, until Ensign Franks discovered the reason was due to their diet; they fed on mineral-enriched nectar in surrounding flowers, and the compound accumulated in their tissues faster than their bodies could expel it.

The Federation databases had been updated, and the Botany lab had a new designated sample tray labelled Frankon; a name you had chosen for the mineral in honour of Ensign Franks’ contribution.

As for you and Leonard… Well, there were many more mess hall coffee dates, and regular visits to the observation deck, too. This, in turn, had led to fewer overrunning shifts in the lab and the gradual disappearance of the purple bags around your eyes; a point which Leonard noted on your chart during your routine follow-up check and said absolutely nothing about.

The world was right again. As right as it could be, considering the Enterprise worked on artificial gravity.

And, most importantly, the away mission that went wrong was not going to be remembered as the mission that ended your career.