Chapter Text
Jim knew something was wrong a half second after his atoms started disassembling under the transporter beam. He was able to catch a glimpse of Bones, who looked like he was about to shit himself, and knew they were both in for a ride. At least they wouldn't be alone, Jim mused, though Bones might not be the best choice for company wherever the transporter sent them. And when they finally materialized on the transport pad of a ship he'd never seen before, Jim wished for anything that Bones had been left out of this.
"Who the hell 're you?" the transport attendant interrogated even before all of Jim's atoms were put back together. "Security!"
"Woah, hey, buddy, I'm Captain Kirk of the USS Enterprise—"
"I don't know any ship by that name, Captain, but don't you move a muscle until our captain gets down here." To emphasize their point, they pulled out a phaser.
"What's going on?"
Jim knew that voice. He looked over to Bones, who'd finally pried his face from his hands and actually looked. Bones recognized that voice, too. Way more intimately than he did. And that's when Jim knew that they were both—
"Chris?" Bones asked in the softest voice Jim had ever heard outside of sickbay.
"Do I know you," Pike paused to look at the bands on Bones' wrist, "Commander?"
Bones' expression changed a dozen times in a millisecond before landing on his trademark scowl as he looked up to the ceiling and muttered, "Oh, fuck the time-space continuum."
More like fuck you, Jim wanted to say out loud. Instead, he walked off the transport pad and offered his hand. "Captain James T., last name withheld—"
"It's Kirk," the transporter attendant so helpfully added.
Fuck. "Can we speak somewhere private? And order that one to silence, no one can know we're here."
Pike looked Jim up and down, spared a glance to Bones, and then nodded. "Follow me to the conference room, the captain will be with you shortly."
"Actually, we'd prefer to talk to you. You're a first officer now, right?"
"Dammit, Jim!" Bones growled. "Don't make it worse than it already is!"
Jim waved Bones off, and the three of them went to the conference room. Bones was practically glued to Jim's side, not that he minded, and he was making it painfully obvious that he was avoiding—and failing—to look at Pike. Jim could tell Pike was annoyed by it, but nothing was said until they were safely behind securely locked doors and the cone of silence was turned on.
"What's going on, and why is he," Pike nodded his head at Bones, who looked away again, "acting like that?"
"Bones—Doctor McCoy just doesn't want to screw up the timeline."
"Jim! Telling him we're from the goddamn future is going to screw it up!"
Pike stared at them blankly for all of two seconds before bellowing out a laugh. "I take it that you two didn't intend to come here?"
Two unison "No"s followed, with Bones adding a 'hell' to the front of his.
"Relax, McCoy. I don't bite," Pike tried to soothe.
"Yes, you do," Bones said under his breath, crossing his arms and falling back onto a seat. "What year is it?"
"Twenty-two thirty-one."
Bones snapped his eyes to Jim, and they got wider with every passing second. "No," Jim said roughly. "No, Bones. We can't."
"Jim! He's still alive, we have to! You have to!"
Pike waved his hand between them and snapped, literally, their attention back to him. "Who's alive, and what does Kirk have to do? Kirk..." Then, clever as always, Pike paused as he worked out the puzzle. "You're George Kirk's son, aren't you?"
"He is, and he never got to meet 'im, and this is—!"
Jim wrestled his hand over Bones' mouth, which took considerable strength since they increased their sparring sessions. "If you're going to play it that way, Bonesey here is your future husband, Pike."
Bones elbowed Jim hard in the solar plexus, and Jim doubled over, coughing. "Dammit, Jim! That ain't your story to tell! It's nobody's business!"
"Do I need to separate you two?" Pike asked, completely unimpressed.
"No," Jim started as Bones said, "Yes."
Jim and Pike looked at Bones, and his glower got deeper, his arms around his chest got tighter, and he curled over himself. "If I don't have the distraction of getting Jim to meet his daddy for the first and only time, I'm gonna have a bit of a breakdown."
"It's going to be alright, Bones." Jim reached out to rub Bones' back, but he shrugged it off. "We're going to get back to our own time, you know how Spock is."
"That isn't what I'm having problems with, Jim." Bones shook his head and finally looked up. "How are you not having any problems with this?"
Jim sighed and ruffled Bones' hair, turning to Pike. "You, uh, you aren't—"
"Stop running your damn mouth, Jim!"
Pike sighed and sat down in the seat next to Bones. "I'm not alive, and neither is George."
"But it doesn't have to be like that in this universe," Jim said as he stood between them, squeezing their shoulders.
"I don't want to disappear, Jimmy!"
"You're already born— Hey, we can visit your dad, too!"
Bones popped up out of his seat, looking like a madman, and he pulled Pike out of his chair by his uniform. "Where are the research labs on here? And get me a team, preferably of blood disease experts, right now."
"Relax, tiger, but recognize that I'm not the captain here. I don't get to make unilateral decisions like that." Pike gently removed Bones' hands, though Jim noted he did not release them. "I take it your father also met an untimely demise?"
"Sorry," Bones mumbled before nodding. "I know I shouldn't mess with the timeline—"
"Either the timeline is already changed, and we're now heading down an alternate path, or you were always meant to come back here, and you can't make any changes no matter what you do." Pike slapped Bones on the shoulder. "Cheer up, McCoy, you can't break anything even if you tried."
"What?!" Jim shouted. "Those are the rules??! That wasn't what I was told!"
Pike laughed, another hearty one that Jim noticed made Bones' eyes widen again. "Who told you otherwise? It's basic logic."
Jim cursed; of course it was logical. "A Vulcan time traveler."
"Alright, so one meeting with George Kirk, a request for blood disease experts, an unfortunate but unavoidable meeting with the admiralty, and a date." Pike directed that last todo to Bones, who blushed and stammered but didn't refuse. "Can my girlfriend come, too? She'll eat you alive, but I promise you'll enjoy every second of it."
Bones shot a glare at Jim as if it was his fault he was in this mess, then returned his gaze to Pike. "Darlin', if you get me a team that will help me cure my father's disease before we gotta leave, I'll give you anything you want."
"I'll hold you to that, McCoy."
"Not sure if seeing my father figure flirt with my brother figure is better or worse now that no one's sporting gray hair."
Bones got a deranged look in his eye as he turned to Jim and lifted some hair at his temple, revealing a small streak of gray. "Speak for yourself, you gave me these!"
Pike reached up to touch Bones' grays, likely knowing exactly what he was doing given the smirk. "I think they suit you."
"No!" Bones scowled and moved away from Pike's touch. "No flirting until you give me my team!"
"I'm starting to feel this will be worse," Jim mused.
"You're just going to egg him on and you know it!"
Jim grinned and winked at Pike. "And I'm going to love-hate every moment of it."
Pike showed mercy and turned away from Bones to face Jim, crossing his arms. "So I'm a father figure to you in your universe? Well, until I die, anyway."
"Yeah, though it took us both a while to get around to admitting it." Jim scratched the back of his head and looked at his feet. "Bones kept trying to independently force it out of us without telling the other what he was doing."
Bones rolled his eyes and sat back down, swiveling back and forth in his chair. "You know the more you tell 'im, the more wrong it'll be for this universe's me to be with him in the future, right?"
There was a long pause. Bones was right, as much as Jim didn't want to admit it. There would be a giant power imbalance—
"Dammit, Jim! Stop thinkin', it's too loud."
Pike chuckled, and Jim didn't even need to be looking at Bones to know he felt it. "I'm good friends with a Vulcan ambassador, I'll ask him about erasing some of my memories of this event, as I agree with McCoy. However, I also agree with Kirk's unspoken 'we should have fun with this.'"
"Speaking of Vulcan," Bones started.
Jim finished, knowing exactly where he was going with it, "We should stop that, too. Spock would never forgive us if we didn't."
"Care to elaborate?" Pike asked, crossing his arms.
"Spock is Bones' boyfriend," Jim skirted.
"Well, I'm glad you found love again, Doctor McCoy," Pike told Bones with a silky smooth tone that Jim knew was doing stuff to Bones. Alas, it was short-lived when Pike leveled a no-nonsense glare his way and put on his captain voice, "But you know that's not what I was referring to."
"Sorry, Pike, but we have to save that one for the admiralty."
And boy, did the admiralty have questions. Jim shielded Bones from most of it, though he couldn't protect the admiralty from Bones when they tried telling him not to bring his medical advancements to this universe. They were able to convey the worst of it while maintaining some level of discretion, not wanting to prevent people—particularly their friends and colleagues—from finding their discoveries. Jim came up with ways to counter the Narada without requiring advanced tech, and Bones helped with a mass casualty plan if the worst did end up happening. In exchange for information that would save billions, the admiralty granted Bones permission to develop cures, provided he included anyone alive and active who played a role in their universe were included.
Unfortunately, according to Bones, that meant a certain David McCoy was making his way to the Antares...with a mini-Bones in tow. Because Bones lied and said his father was weeks away from discovering the cure to his own disease when he passed, leaving Bones to figure out the rest. Jim knew it was a lie, and he was sure Pike knew it, too. Bones was on the brink of discovery when his father passed, but the credited discoverers used his research and had a cure two months before David died, and they didn't announce the cure until a few weeks after. While Bones' divorce caused a lot of his inner turmoil, the way his father died unnecessarily was the real catalyst for his downward spiral.
But if Bones never had that downward spiral, would they have ever met on the shuttle?
Jim shook his head and banished the thought. Bones deserved to have his dad in his life, even if it meant they never met.