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“Transporter room to Captain Kirk. Your presence is requested immediately, there has been a malfunction while retrieving Dr. McCoy.”
At those words the bridge froze, worst-case scenarios brought unwanted to the front of their minds. Panic bubbled under the surface as time released Kirk and he bolted from the room, followed closely by Spock.
He cursed the distance as he dodged crew and threw himself around corners. The distance wasn’t far but it felt like miles, the seconds stretching into hours as he thought of all the different ways the transporter could have lost his best friend. He cursed Spock and his speed when he passed him to reach the door first then cursed him again when he ran into his back when he froze in the open doorway.
“Fuck Spock, get out of the way!” Jim demanded, shoving his way past Spock only to come to a complete stop himself at the sight before him.
Scotty was standing in the middle of the room, and in his arms was a small child about 5 years old. Swamped in a blue uniform shirt and looking suspiciously like the childhood picture Kirk has seen of Bones. Jim stared at the child and the child stared back, curious but seemingly content in the arms of his head engineer.
“Scotty,” Kirk started hesitantly, “Where is Dr. McCoy.”
“About that laddie, there was some kind of interference. I haven’t found the cause yet but-”
“Mr. Scott.” Spock interrupted. “Could you identify the human child in your arms.”
“Aye, sorry. This here is little Lenny.” Scotty answered, hoisting Leonard up higher in his arms.
“Are you telling me that child is Bones?” Kirk inquired, incredulously.
“...Aye.” Scotty answered quietly. “I think it might ‘ave something to do with the energy discharge from the planet. We got a large reading right as we pulled the doctor up.”
Jim walked slowly up to Scotty and the kid, Bones, not wanting to break the calm and scare him. Len’s eyes followed him, still curious, until he got closer. When he stood in front of them, Len leaned forward out of Scotty’s arms and put his arms out toward Jim.
Jim barely hesitated before taking him from Scotty. Len gripped his shirt tightly in his small fists and leaned back and scrutinized Jim, staring in a way only a child could. Jim met his gaze silently, baffled and overwhelmed, staring at the tiny chubby-cheeked version of his friend. Finally, Len released his grip with one of his hands and reached out to touch the healing cut above Jim’s eyebrow that he got on the last mission.
“You ‘ave an owie.” Len said with such a disapproving pout that was so reminiscent of Bones’ that Jim couldn’t help but laugh. Any doubts about this being Bones quickly dismissed.
“‘e started that look early didn’t ‘e.” Scotty said laughing as well.
Len looked between the two men and scowled.
“See doctor.” Len pouted seriously.
“I did, I did. He took good care of me. He got mad at me for getting hurt too.” Jim responded, still laughing.
“It would indeed seem as though we have a young version of our doctor. Though the lack of memories is curious, as though we have received the McCoy from the past.” Spock finally spoke up from where he had been observing by the doorway.
Len’s curious eyes quickly met Spock’s and went wide. He leaned out of Jim’s arms and this time reached to Spock, but Spock made no motion to either move forward or take Len from Jim’s arms. Len’s hands gripped the air in his direction growing more distressed at not being taken, starting to tear up.
“Spock come on, come take him! You are hurting his feelings!”
Spock looked to the captain, wide eyes almost comical in his usually stoic face as he was confronted with the idea of taking the young and emotional Leonard. Slower than Jim was, though for different reasons, Spock approached the duo and lifted Leonard from Kirk’s arms to settle into his. The two stayed very still, staring at each other, almost sizing each other up in a way that both Kirk and Scotty found extremely humorous.
Finally, Leonard broke the moment by reaching out and gently poking at Spock’s ears. Under the intense and childlike curiosity, Spock started to become very flustered and a green flush began dusting his cheeks. When Leonard noticed this he put both hands on his cheeks and beamed at him, delighted.
“You rn’t human!” Leonard exclaimed. “Havn’t met an alien before.”
Jim, feeling more confident now about not scaring young Bones and feeling like he ought to rescue the increasingly flustered Spock, finally intervened.
“He is an alien! You are on a space vessel right now with us, would you like to meet the rest of the crew?” Jim asked smiling, arms out to receive Leonard. Leonard in response just lit up.
“A ship!! A space ship?!” Bones squealed leaning towards Jim again.
“Yup! My ship, the Enterprise! I am its captain, want to go explore with me?” Jim smiled.
“Yes!” Leonard cried wiggling in Spock’s arms until he was released to the ground. Jim smiled and stuck out his hand low for little Leo to grab.
“Let’s check out the medbay first!” Jim said pointedly glancing up at Spock and Scotty. “They have a lot of cool things to look at, then we can go visit the bridge, and if you are good, I might even let you sit in the captain's chair.”
Little Leo gasped and pulled at Jim’s hand to the door while Jim just laughed so he wouldn’t cry and picked him up and onto his shoulders. Hopeful that a trip to medbay would give some answers and solutions.
After a long walk to medbay and a lot of stares from passing crew, Jim breathed out a quiet sigh of relief that the first person he saw when he walked through the doors was Nurse Chapel.
“Chapel!! Just the person I wanted to see! I have someone I want you to meet! Leonard, say hi to nurse Chapel” Jim explained, voice falsely jovial.
Chapel's sharp gaze looked between Jim and Leo, she quickly masked her shocked understanding with a wide smile that didn't quite cover the tightness at the corner of her eyes, her ability to read what he wasn't saying finally being used for good. Though she would argue that knowing when the captain was hiding an injury was also a good thing.
“Well hello, Leo, what brings you in today?”
“We are exporin the ship!” Leo's responded, eyes as wide as his smile.
“Think you could show Leo some of the cool gadgets you got to work with in here?” Jim asked pointedly.
Chapel met his eyes meaningfully before directing her attention back to Leo. “I've got some time, can I steal you away from the good Captain here to show you around?” Chapel asked sweetly.
At Leo's wiggling, Jim pulled him up off his shoulders and passed him off to chapel with one last weighted stare before leaving to discuss the source of the issue with Scotty and Spock.
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Jim returned to medbay filled with even more anxious energy than when he left it. Talking to Spock and Scotty led to no new information and instead just increased his frustrations.
“Hey, Chap-” Jim started then stopped in his tracks, staring. Chapel had Leo up on a biobed and at least half the staff in medbay were surrounding it and Leo, playing a game with him. Leo’s eyes were scrunched up and his cheeks were puffed out in a wide smile, bright pink from laughing. His giggles and happy shrieks filled medbay with a joyful sound not often, if ever, heard there. Chapel looked up, met Jim’s incredulous face and nodded her head towards a quieter area of medbay, leaving Leo to be happily occupied by the doting medbay staff.
“Chapel, did you find anything out?” Jim asked urgently and hushed, lightly rocking from one foot to the other. His anxiety was palpable.
“It’s gonna be fine, Captain. His cells are showing signs of rapid growth, as though he were growing but at an extremely fast pace. In just the last hour he has aged approximately 6 months and continuing at an exponential rate. Whatever it was that caused this, and I have no insight on that, the effects don’t appear permanent.” Chapel said, firmly holding Jim’s arms to keep him from fidgeting. “It’s going to be alright. Why don’t you go continue showing him around, he should be aged fully by tomorrow morning.”
Jim took a deep breath to ground himself but his voice was still shaky. “How do you know the aging will stop?”
Jim followed Chapel’s gaze to look back over to the biobed. She sighed and her calm confidence faltered with her breath.
“I don’t know Captain, but I can hope. This is out of our medical knowledge, all we can do is wait.” She glanced back at him and turned him towards Leo. “Go, take him around. Have some fun.”
With brief and uncharacteristic hesitation, Jim walked over to the crowd around his best friend and plastered on a large, bright smile.
“Leo! Looks like you are having a great time! Guess that means you don’t want to see the bridge?”
Jim’s smile became a little more real and a little more like a smirk at the wide-eyed, open mouth look he got in return.
“The bwidge!” Leo wiggled his way off the biobed, little feet kicking as he slid down. Jim put out his hand for him to take only to be pulled by that same hand toward the door. “I wanna see it!”
Jim couldn’t help but laugh and step quickly to take the lead and guide the hyperactive and excitable miniature Leo. Jim knew that his friend hadn’t always been the jaded person he is now, late nights and a good bit of alcohol led to a lot more sharing than either of them expected. It was nice to be able to see it first hand though, this joyful energy that Jim has only ever gotten brief glimpses of over the years.
As they walked to the bridge, Jim became very aware that word must have spread about Leo. Curious looks lingered longer than before and it was only a stern look from Jim that stayed them from interacting as Leo babbled at Jim the whole way there.
Leo was almost vibrating with excitement in the turbolift, bursting out with all the energy that only young children are capable of and making a bee-line straight to the viewscreen. He made a dead-stop next to Sulu at navigation and stared up into space. His mouth and eyes were open with absolute childlike wonder. Sulu looked down at him, eyes soft with a wide smile. He remembers what his daughter was like at that age.
“Hey Leo, want to come up here and see where we are?”
Leo startled, not even noticing that he was standing next to someone; he was so focused on the sight outside the viewscreen.
“Can I?!” He squealed turning to grab the side of Sulu’s seat. Sulu just laughed and swooped him up by the armpits onto his lap, pulling a delighted high pitched giggle out of him.
While Sulu, with Chekov leaning over to assist, started explaining where they were and what the controls do and letting Leo press some much to Leo’s absolute delight, Uhura walked over to stand next to Jim.
“He’s such a happy child.” She commented softly after a few minutes listening to the pure joy of a child laughing.
“I know. I am thankful for the opportunity to see him like this, now that there is a chance of getting the Bones I know back.” Jim responded, voice getting soft and sad.
Uhura waited a few minutes to see if he would continue talking. She glanced over to Jim; his expression reflected a warm sort of melancholy. “What happened to him, if you feel comfortable sharing, to darken that kind of spirit?”
“He...it happened when he was doing off-planet clinics during his residency, part of a community service thing. There was a freak storm on the planet they were supposed to land on and it took down their shuttle…” Jim stopped talking and looked away. He couldn’t look at the sweet unburdened child Bones once was while telling this story. His breath caught when Uhura forced his hand to unclench and held it in hers. She squeezed his hand when she saw the wrecked look on his face.
“He didn’t share much else, he started getting really worked up. But from what I could piece together...only some of them made it. And it took hours till help could get to them. Bones being Bones did the best he could but- there is a reason he is as good as he is at emergency medicine. He couldn’t let himself be anything less after that.”
Uhura’s grip on his hand was tight, and she was close to tears herself, looking at the little Leo standing on Sulu’s legs so he can reach to press the buttons by Chekov.
“I can see now why you are so protective of him,” she finally said, giving his hand one last squeeze before going over herself to say hello.
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It was a few hours later before the bridge finally started to get quiet. Leo was trying valiantly to stay awake but he was nodding off, curled up in Uhura’s lap where she stole him away to see communications and talk to other members of the crew. He had especially enjoyed calling down to Scotty and Chapel.
Jim finally came over from where he had been observing this young and playful version of his best friend.
“Alright Little Leo, I think it’s time to say good night, don’t you?” All he got in response was a quiet grumble. Jim couldn’t hold back the huff of laughter at seeing something that was so Bones in such a little body. Though in the time that he had been up on the bridge, he had grown to about 8, and this 8-year-old was tired and grumpy.
“Okay, up we go.” Jim gently lifted Leo into his arms, sucking in a breath when he trustingly curled his fingers into his shirt and tucked his head under his chin. With a gently tightened grip, Jim carried Leo down to his quarters.
It took a little finagling to get Leo into something resembling Pjs, they had to be loose enough that they would fit adult-sized Bones too. Which, trying to find a way to have adult-sized clothing fit a child was a lot harder than Jim expected. Worse still was trying to get the sedative into the tired, grumpy, and now frustrated child. Chapel warned him though, that as the growing sped up like it was, it would become very uncomfortable, if not painful, for him to be aware of it happening.
Finally, Jim was able to tuck the sleeping Leo into bed and fall down next to him in exhaustion. He finally fell asleep himself watching the slow rise and fall of his chest and hoping that all would be okay by morning.
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Awareness came slowly to Jim, he was warm, there was a heavy and solid weight across his stomach, and warm breath against his chest. He blinked away the sleep slowly and rubbed his free hand over his face. Then he sucked in a breath and quickly looked down to see Bones, his Bones, fast asleep and curled up against his side. All the tension he has been holding for the last 24 hours bled out of his body so quickly he could almost laugh if there was a chance it wouldn’t wake Bones up. For now, he just relaxed and relished in the peace of knowing his best friend was back in the body he was supposed to be in.
“Jim?” And oh, had Jim missed the gruff sleep-roughened voice of his best friend. “Why am I in your bed…and why am I in your clothes. Did we drink too much again? Ugh, I do have the headache to match it.”
Jim started to chuckle, which turned into a laugh, and then just devolved into a hysteric sort of wheeze. By the time he calmed down, Bones was hovering over him, forehead wrinkle back in place and the usual exasperated concern radiating off of him.
“Okay....something happened last night. You going to tell me what I did to humiliate myself or are you going to make me figure it out.”
Jim finally calmed down enough to talk, wiping tears from his eyes he just said, “It’s good to have you back Bones,” and pulled him back down for a hug.
Eventually, Bones was able to get Jim to talk to him about what happened, though no one would share any details. They also never did figure out what caused it in the first place. Bones started to piece things together though. He had fleeting recollections of being tickled in medbay? And some of his nurses seemed a little more resistant to his glares. He also couldn’t help but remember a phantom kiss on the cheek by Chapel and sitting on...Sulu and Uhura’s laps?
Jim just laughed at him when he grumbled about no one taking him seriously anymore. Then laughed even harder when the grumbling turned against him rather than the rest of the crew, paired with his signature glare. Jim just tuned him out after a while, offering supportive ‘hmms’ in all the right places in a familiar routine. It ended up being a nice opportunity to see Bones so free of all the stressors and burdens of his adult life, to see what he was. Nothing though, could replace this Bones that he had grown to love, the one he is now.