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The man is elderly, with gray hair and a grizzled face. Kirk is certain he has never seen him before. “Scotty!” he shouts into the comm. “What the hell are you doing with the transporters?”
There’s a pause. The man, seeming more surprised than distressed, looks around the bridge, then focuses on Kirk and says, “It appears that I have been diverted from the rest of the group.” Immediately thereafter, Scotty replies timidly, “Naught but some minor adjustments, sir.”
“Get over here. You just randomly beamed somebody I’ve never seen before onto the bridge. Good thing he looks more like an accountant or somebody’s grandfather than a Klingon, but you never know. Kirk out.”
The man is still standing on the transporter platform. The entire bridge is staring. Several people have their hands on their phasers, but, if Kirk is any judge, the man is harmless. Kirk goes over to the platform, where the man says to him mildly, “This appears to be a part of NASA not on the tour map.”
Kirk blinks. “NASA?” He recognizes the acronym: the United States precursor to Starfleet, from long before the Federation was founded.
“My colleagues and I were invited to tour Goddard Space Flight Center. Perhaps you might be able to guide me back to the group?”
“Goddard Space Flight Center was decommissioned in the early twenty-second century, when Starfleet Headquarters was built,” Spock interjects from his station. His voice is completely level, like a stranger didn’t just beam right onto their ship. “Are you quite sure that is where you were?”
An expression of irritation crosses the man’s face. “I’m not so old that I don’t know where I am. Or, rather, I do not consider my confusion at the present time to be my own fault.”
“You’re on the Federation starship Enterprise,” Kirk says. “I’m Captain James T. Kirk. And you are?”
“Harry.”
“Harry,” Spock states, in that way he has that makes the word sound like both a query of what the hell are you talking about? and a statement of you’re a fucking idiot.
The man sighs. “Harry Blackmun.” He pauses, as if waiting for a response or a reaction; when there is none, his eyebrows go up in what’s clearly more surprise…but also a bit of relief.
Kirk extends a hand, and they shake.
Harry looks around. “I believe I must be hallucinating. Or perhaps dead and in some sort of afterlife. A pleasant- and efficient-looking one, if a bit mechanical.”
Kirk’s about to reply, except Scotty chooses that moment to bolt onto the bridge. “Captain! Sir! I’ve discovered a way to beam through time! Only in the forwards direction at the moment, but I should have backwards worked out in a few days.”
“I am sure that will provide a great source of relief to our unexpected visitor,” says Spock, “as you apparently beamed him against his will from a work-related activity on Earth onto a starship whose very existence is a mystery to him.”
“Excuse me,” Harry says, “but assuming this is not all a hallucination brought on by latent insanity, you’re saying that it will take several days to return to me to my proper time and place?”
“Four or five,” says Scotty. “Well, maybe a week. A fortnight, no more.”
“A fortnight,” Harry repeats, almost to himself. Then he looks at Kirk. “Do you have access to any sort of research facilities on this…vessel? Law and humanities, that is, not science.”
“I assume so. Why?”
“I have a…piece of work which it is urgent that I finish. Several of my colleagues will be waiting to review it when I return. I should be able to reconstruct my partial draft, but there are certain citations I will need.”
“You a professor?” Kirk asks.
“No. I work for the government,” Harry responds, which isn’t really an answer. “Please, I would be very grateful for the opportunity to get back to my work.”
“I believe Lieutenant Erikson, as historian, would be best equipped to assist Mr. Blackmun,” Spock says. “With your permission, Captain, I will call him to the bridge.”
“Sure, it’ll give Erikson something to do. Harry, welcome to the Enterprise.”
+||+||+
The whole goal of designing a starship is to have enough space for everyone, but no unnecessary space. Fortunately, though, the Enterprise was designed for diplomatic missions, among many other things, and contains guest quarters for travelling ambassadors and officials. So they’re able to give Harry a decent place to bed down, at least, during his unplanned visit. He and Erikson sit down with several PADDs, and Kirk leaves them to it.
+||+||+
Several hours later, when Kirk gets off shift, he knocks at the door to the diplomatic quarters. There’s no answer, and he assumes that Harry has gone to dinner, but then a distracted, “Come in,” floats through the plasteel. Kirk enters to find Harry sitting at the desk in the front room, PADDs scattered around him. He’s glaring at the one upon which he’s currently writing. “This is much easier with simple pen and paper,” he says, scowling.
“Hello to you too,” Kirk says, because he totally knows this type of personality. “I’m going to guess you haven’t eaten dinner yet.”
“Oh,” says Harry. “Is it that time?”
“Yeah, you showed up about midway through my shift, and it just ended. Come on, I’ll show you where the mess is.” Kirk leads him through saving his work on the PADD, and they head down to the mess. “So what are you working on that’s so important that you have to do it in space?”
Harry seems to weigh his words before replying. “I’m a judge,” he says finally, carefully, “a member of a court. A particularly tragic case came before us: a four-year-old boy beaten so severely by his father that he will be paralyzed and profoundly mentally disabled for the rest of his life.”
“Jesus,” Kirk says, despite himself.
Harry nods. “The abuse had been reported several times—and was, more than once, so egregious as to require hospitalization—and the case was under the supervision of the local department of social services. A social worker visited regularly and noted the signs of abuse, but took no further action. During two visits, the social worker was told that the child was too sick to visit with her. She didn’t press for further detail or ask to see the child anyway. On the day following the second of these visits, the child was taken to the emergency room yet again. His father had beaten him into a coma. The brain damage turned out to be so severe that the child will have to live in an institution for the rest of his life.”
Kirk’s not religious, never has been, but he has the sudden urge to cross himself anyway. “Holy shit. Uh, excuse my language. Tell me this…waste of skin is spending the rest of his life in jail. Or, you know, got strung up by his balls. Um, excuse my language again.”
Harry smiles faintly. “I won’t repeat what my colleagues and clerks said about the facts of the case, but our commentary was much in line with yours.”
They break off when they arrive at the mess, and Kirk spends several minutes explaining the food synthesizers. “Fascinating,” Harry breathes, sounding like a more expressive Spock. “One simply presses a series of buttons, and food results?”
“It’s not as good as real, made-in-a-kitchen food,” Kirk admits. “But it’s OK—edible.”
McCoy, Sulu, Spock, and Uhura are already at a table, and Kirk and Harry join them. Kirk rests a hand on Bones’s shoulder for a moment, then takes the seat next to him; as a matter of professionalism, they don’t tend to be demonstrative in public.
Harry spends several moments examining his roast chicken, scalloped potatoes, and asparagus, as though determining that they really are what they appear to be. Finally he takes an experimental bite of the asparagus, chews, and looks vaguely surprised, as if he still hadn’t quite expected it to be real food. Kirk tries not to smile.
“You were telling me about your case,” Kirk reminds Harry, then says to the other four, “Harry was filling me in about the work he’s doing while he’s here.”
Harry gives them a brief version of what he’s already told Kirk.
“I hope this man went to jail for a very long time,” Uhura says.
Harry shakes his head. “Less than three years.”
Spock’s eyebrow is up by his hairline. “This man beat a four-year-old child so badly as to cause permanent brain damage and paralysis, yet he was subject to a penalty of fewer than three years’ imprisonment?”
“That is, unfortunately, correct,” Harry says. If he’s startled by the pointy ears or the bright orange soup, he doesn’t show a visible reaction.
“Damn miscarriage of justice,” McCoy mutters.
“That is not logical,” Spock says. “Such a light penalty demonstrates not only to the offender but to the society at large that children are of little worth. And a society that does not value its young places at risk the health, strength, and responsibility of its successive generations, and ultimately of the society itself.”
“I agree with you on all counts,” Harry replies. “The child’s mother pursued a civil lawsuit against the social services department, under the claim that they were aware of the abuse—which they were—and that they had a duty to protect the child.”
“Seems reasonable,” says McCoy.
“My court disagreed,” Harry answers, simply.
Uhura’s fork stops halfway to her mouth. “You’re joking.”
“I wish I were. Nine justices comprise my court; only three of us felt that the state agency in question had a duty to carry out the duties it was founded to perform.”
McCoy has put down his utensils completely. Kirk knows that he has, for several different reasons, strong feelings about child abuse. “So you’re saying that this boy was beaten into a vegetable, his dad did two years and change for it, and the child-protective department isn’t responsible at all?”
“That is the essence of it, yes.”
“Jesus Christ,” Bones says. He gets up, pushes his tray into the disposal slot, and leaves.
There’s a pause before Uhura says, “Do you want to go after him?”
Kirk shakes his head. “No.”
“I apologize,” Harry says, regret visible on his lined face. “I did not intend to upset him.”
“It’s not your fault,” Kirk says. “I should have known he’d react badly: This isn’t something he’s really rational about. Not because of anything that happened to him,” Kirk hastens to add, “but he’s a doctor, and he’s got a kid, and some other stuff too. He just needs to go hit the punching bag in the gym for a while.”
“It is a troubling subject for anyone,” Harry says.
“So what are you writing,” Kirk asks, “if your side lost?”
“A dissent.”
“So that the others know why they’re wrong,” Uhura says, smiling a little.
“Precisely. And so that the boy’s mother and relatives know, at least, that not all of us signed on to this travesty. And also to provide a basis of reasoning for this court in the future, should it vote to overturn the case.”
“The rule, then, may be revoked?” Spock says.
“It’s not frequent,” Harry admits, “but it does occur. If it happens, it will not be within my lifetime. But I can provide this to future justices, and as some manner of cold consolation to any others who may think the decision was wrong.”
“If it is permissible,” Spock says, “I would like to read this piece when it is complete.”
“That’s a good offer,” Kirk tells Harry. “Vulcans are all about logic—it’s kind of the basis for their whole culture.”
“I would appreciate that,” Harry says to Spock. “Two of my colleagues, along with my clerks, are my usual editors, so any assistance in their absence is quite helpful.”
They finish dinner, and Kirk admits, “I should go check on Bones.”
“I hope he is alright,” Harry says.
“He will be. You gonna work some more?”
“I would like to. Though it is difficult, not having the majority opinion and Justice Brennan’s dissent as references.”
“Another member of your court, then, wrote an objection?” Spock asks.
“Yes, a very cogent exposition of the legal issues misinterpreted by the majority. I had hoped to be able to add more specifically to his arguments.”
Spock and Uhura head in the direction of Spock’s quarters; Kirk walks Harry to his, then starts in the direction of the gym, hoping Bones is done fighting for the night.
He’s still beating the crap out of the punching bag, but when he turns to look at Kirk, his face isn’t angry, just tired. Bones stops his assault and drops his arms, and Kirk sees that he’s not wearing gloves. Both sets of knuckles are bruised, and his dominant hand, the left, shows abrasions from repeatedly striking the rough fabric of the bag. Kirk laces their fingers together, and Bones sighs.
“You need to whale on this thing some more,” Kirk asks, “or are you ready to come get in the shower with me?”
Bones nods. They don’t touch during the walk from the gym to Kirk’s quarters, and even once they’re inside, they undress separately. It’s not until they’re in the shower and Bones has entered his ration code to get them actual water that he turns and puts his hands on Kirk. It’s not sexual, but rather careful and exploratory, as though Bones is checking Kirk’s skull, shoulders, spine—checking his body all over to make sure he’s whole. When Bones is finished, he lets Kirk put his arms around him, and they stand there like that for a few minutes. Kirk’s not sure how to start—what to ask—but Bones starts first.
“When I had my own practice, I did family medicine—basically general practice. But I did my residency in emergency medicine.” Kirk knows all of this, but he lets Bones go on. “I’d see these kids come in with obvious signs of abuse, and I’d call the social workers, get the police involved, document everything as completely as I could—and half the time they’d be back again in a few months. Like the parents thought that maybe I just wouldn’t notice. Every now and then, Family Services would actually get off their asses and investigate, and I’d hear that a child got placed in a foster home or went to live with relatives. But more often the families would just stop coming, and I’d never know: Did somebody else get the authorities involved and I just never heard about it? If it was the school or the relatives or something like that, I wouldn’t necessarily know. Or did something worse happen—did the kid have a quote-unquote accident, or fall down the stairs, or fall off the roof, or one of any number of excuses that those parents used to tell me and think I’d buy?”
“You did everything you could,” Kirk says, knowing even as the words come out that they’re nowhere near sufficient.
“Yeah,” Bones says, “and what the hell did it matter, in the long run?”
There really isn’t any arguing with Bones when he gets like this, and Kirk suspects that reminding Bones that Kirk himself turned out OK isn’t the right answer. “It isn’t fair,” Kirk says, finally. “But it matters because at least those kids knew that you gave a crap—that somebody, at least, wasn’t fooled. I mean, I guess it’s like the dissent Harry’s writing. That kid’s mom still loses the case, but at least she knows that some people weren’t fooled—that some people think there should be some kind of duty to do what you’re responsible for.”
Bones turns off the water, and Kirk reaches for a towel and dries them both. As he does, Bones touches him lightly, desultorily, and Jim thinks—not for the first time—that maybe Bones’s life would have been easier if he hadn’t been a doctor, if he’d been a tax lawyer or a restaurant owner or a stockbroker or something where people’s lives and hurts weren’t his to worry about and he wouldn’t have had to build a thick, sharp wall around himself as protection from them.
Except Bones wouldn’t have been happy that way, and that’s why Kirk loves him, and he is never, ever going to say that out loud as long as he lives.
+||+||+
Bones sleeps, but Kirk doesn’t, and finally he gets up, pulls on a T-shirt and a pair of jeans that don’t look too dirty, and heads out for a wander around the ship. If he can’t sleep, he can at least spend some time with his girl.
It’s late enough ship’s-time that the halls are relatively quiet: Gamma shift has a leaner crew than the others, and most of the off-duty humans are asleep. The nonhumans, of course, don’t necessarily follow similar sleep cycles, but most use this period for some sort of rest or relaxation. Spock is likely awake, but they don’t (yet) have the sort of relationship where Kirk can bang on the door and Spock won’t spend the next hour interrogating him about What Troubles Have Disturbed Jim’s Circadian Rhythms; plus, there’s the Uhura factor, and Jim considers it his solemn duty not to interfere with his friends (which, in this case, refers to both parties, and that’s weird enough to cause another cycle of insomnia on its own) getting laid.
Mind meandering as it is, Kirk almost runs down Harry.
“A captain’s duty never ends?” Harry says.
“The captain’s off duty,” Kirk says. “But the captain’s an insomniac. You looking for something, or just wandering around?”
“I often take walks late at night. I find that it clears my head. My wife often comes with me. I admit, though, that it is refreshing not to be followed by Secret Service agents.”
“Are those police?” Kirk asks.
Harry shakes his head. “No. Round-the-clock protection for certain government officials. The president has legions of them wherever he goes. At the moment, however, I rate only two at a time.”
“So your court must be pretty famous.”
“We are not unknown,” Harry allows.
“Well, while you’re wandering around without your secret security, want to come up to the observation deck? Shame to be on a starship and not see the stars.”
“I would like that,” Harry says, and Kirk measures his normal manic stride to match the elderly man’s stately pace.
It’s always a treat, showing the observation deck to someone who’s only seen the stars from below, not from among them. Harry takes a sharp breath in amazement and presses his fingertips to the transparent aluminum like a child. “My God,” he says after a moment. “If this is a hallucination, it’s a spectacularly beautiful one.”
Kirk shakes his head and can’t help smiling. “Not a hallucination. Those are the stars.”
Harry gazes out for a few more moments, then says, “I wish Dottie could see this—my wife,” he adds as explanation. “If this truly is real, she’ll never forgive me for seeing it without her.” Then, after a pause, he says, in a different tone, “And Warren too. I wish Warren could see this as well.”
Uhura would know whether it’s socially acceptable to ask or not; Kirk pretty much has no idea, but Harry did bring it up. “Is he a friend of yours?” Kirk asks
Harry nods. “My closest friend since childhood. He was best man at my wedding, and he recommended me for my seat on the court. But we…grew apart.”
“Did something happen? You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Kirk appends hastily.
“It was a philosophical agreement that became personal,” Harry says. “When I joined the court, Warren and I were of like mind about most issues. I don’t believe that my views have changed much, but, regardless, we began to differ more and more. For a while we were able to keep our disagreements strictly in the realm of constitutional interpretation, but it became increasingly difficult. We grew distant, then hostile. Bowers perhaps exemplified the difference in opinion. By that time we were essentially not speaking to each other.”
“What’s Bowers?”
“Bowers v. Hardwick was a case decided by my court. Michael Bowers was the attorney general of the state of Georgia; his name was on the lawsuit as a point of procedure. The issue concerned a man from Atlanta who was arrested in the privacy of his apartment for having sex with another man.”
Kirk feels his eyebrows go up. “Seriously?”
“Yes. Georgia had a sodomy law, and a policeman with a grudge decided to enforce it.”
“Wow,” Kirk says. “I knew that a long time ago there were laws like that, but…I thought it was a really, really long time ago.”
“From my point of view it is the year 1989,” Harry says. “Though I imagine you will tell me differently.”
“Yeah. Um. It’s a while past that. Do you want me to tell you?”
Harry pauses, then shakes his head. “No. Because I will want to interrogate you about what has changed over the intervening years, and I think that’s a rabbit hole best left unexplored, for the sake of my sanity. That is, if I have any sanity left.”
“You seem pretty sane to me. And I promise, again, that you’re not hallucinating. Anyway, so this guy got arrested for doing it with another guy in his apartment.”
“Yes,” Harry continues. “He then challenged the statute that made his conduct a crime. The lowest court ruled against him, the Court of Appeals ruled in his favor, and from there his case came to my court. He lost.”
“Wait, what? You’re telling me that your court said it was illegal to do what Bones and I do every night? Well, not every night. Just most nights.”
Harry looks half amused and half appalled. “The benefits of youth,” he mutters. “And, yes, that is what the court said. Warren voted with the majority; I did not. He wrote an opinion pontificating about the multiplicity of ancient teachings that decry homosexual behavior. I wrote a dissent saying that he and the majority had both their law and their history wrong. Warren felt strongly that, as a moral matter, I should have sided with him.” Harry shrugs a little and turns back to the stars. “I felt differently. Warren retired three years ago, shortly after Bowers was decided, and I thought that perhaps we could reconstruct our friendship since we were no longer at odds on the court. But he remained—remains—too angry at me for what he sees as a betrayal.”
“Just because you disagreed with him?” Kirk thinks of Bones, Spock, and Uhura, each of whom disagree with him—and with one another—on a regular basis, sometimes for sheer entertainment.
“That is a simple way of putting it,” Harry says. “But, yes, essentially.”
“I’m sorry,” Kirk says, meaning it. “That really sucks.”
Harry nods. “Thank you.”
“Maybe this is going down the rabbit hole a little bit, but that kind of law isn’t on the books anymore anywhere that I’ve ever heard of. It would just—I mean, no offense to 1989, but it would be stupid. Bones and I couldn’t even be married if it was illegal for us to have sex!”
This time it’s Harry’s eyebrows that elevate. “You and your…companion, the doctor—you are…” He trails off.
Kirk holds up his left hand, ornamented by a plain gold band.
Harry’s face conveys sheer shock. “You can marry another man?”
“Uh, yeah,” Kirk says. “We’re unrelated adult beings capable of meaningful consent.”
“That…another man? Could a woman marry a woman?”
Harry is bizarrely stuck on this point, Kirk thinks. It’d be way weirder if McCoy was one of those gaseous beings they happened upon in the Laurentian, or a sentient plant like on that other planet, even though that’d be perfectly legal. The sex would be strange—and maybe awesome, Kirk isn’t sure. He forces himself back to the topic at hand. “Sure. A woman with a woman, a woman with a man, a woman with a person or being of indeterminate or undeclared gender, a person or being of indeterminate or undeclared gender with another person or being of indeterminate or undeclared gender.”
“That is difficult for me to fathom,” Harry says, finally.
“Well, it’s difficult for me to fathom that in your time, it’s OK to beat the crap out of your kid but not to do what married people do!”
“Your point is well taken,” Harry acquiesces. “Though, from what you have told me, I hold out hope that one day we will be more enlightened.”
“It’s not like things are perfect now,” Kirk admits. “There are still wars, people still murder each other, species hate other species, this one fucked-up asshole—sorry, language—blew up a whole planet rather than just go back in time and fix the problem.” At Harry’s bewildered look, Kirk says, “It’s a long story. But my point is, we’re still kind of a bunch of cave men, only with shinier clubs than we used to have.”
Harry laughs. “Then in that regard, your time and mine are not so different.”
“Maybe not,” Kirk says, and can’t help smiling at the small, wizened man leaning against the window that shows them the stars. “But, yeah, some things have definitely changed for the better. Listen, I’m gonna try to get some sleep. You should, too.”
“Actually, I believe I am in the mood to write the remainder of my dissent. I would be much obliged, however, if you could find someone to escort me to my cabin—I find that all the corridors on this vessel look identical to me.”
“I’ll walk you,” Kirk says. “It’s pretty much on the way.” It isn’t, really—guest quarters and officer quarters are on different levels—but there’s no reason to bug a yeoman when it’ll take Kirk five minutes to do it himself. Besides, Harry’s good company. Kirk thinks for a moment of Old Spock, and decides that he and Harry would probably get along.
As they near Harry’s temporary quarters, he says to Kirk, “You appear of tender years, for a ship’s captain.”
Tender years. Kirk has to swallow a smile; Harry and both the Spocks should get together and have a wacky-turns-of-phrase contest. “I am,” Kirk says. “I’m…sort of a special case, I guess.”
Harry looks at him through shrewd, sympathetic eyes. “It is a great deal of responsibility to take on so young.”
“Yeah,” Kirk acknowledges. “But I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
“Then you are fortunate,” Harry says. “Good night, Captain Kirk.”
+||+||+
Bones wakes up enough to roll over and slur, “Gof’rwalk?” when Kirk returns to his cabin.
Kirk leaves the T-shirt and jeans on the floor and settles next to him. “Yeah. Talked to Harry for a while. Go back to sleep.”
Bones drops an arm over Kirk’s chest, and does.
Kirk kisses Bones’s shoulder and murmurs, too quietly to rouse him, “I love you.” Kirk falls asleep, aware that he is gifted with something—many things—precious.
+||+||+
At breakfast the next morning, Harry looks tired but seems to be in a good mood. “Did you finish?” Kirk asks.
Harry nods. “As much as I can without having the majority opinion and Bill’s dissent as reference points. If your offer still stands, Commander,” he says to Spock, “I’d appreciate any comments you have.” It occurs to Kirk that they likely have the capability of looking up the other opinions; but, he thinks, that would involve going down the rabbit hole that Harry has expressed reluctance—probably prudent—at exploring.
“Indeed,” Spock replies. “I shall read it immediately upon the conclusion of my shift.”
“Then if you will all excuse me,” Harry says, “I’m going to retire for a while. Staying up all night to write was considerably easier in my twenties than it is in my eighties.”
Kirk has to get to the bridge, so this time he calls a yeoman to walk Harry back to his quarters. “I am unfamiliar with twentieth-century Terran jurisprudence,” Spock says as he and Kirk make their way to their stations. “I anticipate that reading Mr. Blackmun’s piece will be most educational.”
“If he writes anything like he talks,” Kirk says, “he’s probably a pretty good writer.”
“I expect so,” Spock says, and goes to his station.
Kirk takes the captain’s chair and greets Chekov and Sulu; Uhura, though, has beta today. “’Morning, everybody,” he says. “What have you got for me?”
He has the greatest job in the world.
+||+||+
It’s a big group at dinner that night: Kirk, McCoy, Chekov, Sulu, Spock, Harry, Gaila, Scotty, and Keenser; Uhura joins them late, when beta shift ends.
“Good news, Captain!” Scotty announces, plunking down a tray laden with three sandwiches and some kind of very dark beer. “Gaila and I’ve got the equations figured out”—he thumps Harry on the back, and Harry coughs—“and we can get you home!”
“That is good news indeed,” says Harry. “I imagine my family and my employer are experiencing some consternation over my absence.”
“Sir, we can beam you back to the exact point in time when you left—right, Scotty?” Gaila says, and they bump fists. “So no one will even know you were gone.”
“That would be ideal,” says Harry.
Spock hands him a PADD. “I read your piece with great interest. I made only a few suggestions, all concerning grammar and style; otherwise I saw nothing requiring alteration. Your logic is sound and its expression clear. Your use of an emotional appeal is nonstandard, in my experience, but I suspect that it will be effective for a human audience.”
“It’s a human audience, and humans who are affected by the outcome of this case,” Harry says. “I think my colleagues forget that, sometimes.”
“Then I hope that your appeal is well taken,” Spock says. “It is eloquently expressed.”
“Thank you,” Harry says, and looks down at the PADD. “Is there a way for me to print this out?”
Kirk sighs. “Crap. Yeah, somebody on this ship’s got to have a paper printer somewhere, and you definitely can’t take that PADD back with you—there’s a whole rule about that. I’ll comm my yeoman and see what she can dig up.”
“So once we get your papers printed,” Scotty tells Harry cheerfully, “we can send you back! Though I’d vote we finish eating first—always hate beaming on an empty stomach.”
+||+||+
After dinner, Rand finds a printer, Harry tucks the papers into the inside pocket of his suit coat, and they head for the transporter. Really, only Scotty needs to be there, but a group has come to see Harry off: Kirk, McCoy, Spock, and Uhura. Harry shakes their hands—Spock even submits to it, likely knowing that Harry has no idea about the whole touch-telepathy thing—and says, “I appreciate your hospitality over the past few days.”
“Hey, thanks for being our guest,” Kirk replies. “Even if, you know, you didn’t exactly want to be.”
“It was an exceptional experience,” Harry says, and follows Scotty’s direction onto the transporter. “So do I click my heels three times?”
Unexpectedly, Uhura laughs with delight. “I didn’t think anybody but me had seen that!”
“A favorite of all three of my daughters,” Harry says. “There’s no place like home.”
“There’s no place like home,” Uhura agrees, and Harry shimmers and disappears.
+||+||+
As brilliant as Scotty is, Kirk still worries, and, while Bones is at the gym, Kirk takes the PADD Harry had been using, finds the draft of his dissent, and then goes onto the network to see whether he can find any historical traces of it. Harry’s draft gives the kid’s name as Joshua DeShaney; it doesn’t specifically identify anyone else involved, but the name is unusual enough that Kirk figures he should be able to find something. And indeed he does: His first search brings up DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services (1989). There are three opinions: the majority and two dissents, one listed as “Brennan” and the other as “Blackmun.” Kirk clicks on “Blackmun.”
Today, Harry began, the Court purports to be the dispassionate oracle of the law….
It’s a short dissent—likely because of Harry’s inability to reference his colleagues as he was writing—but heartfelt and pointed. It is a sad commentary upon American life, Harry concluded, and Kirk, after reading the majority and the other dissent, can’t help but agree. He thinks of all those kids Bones saw; he tries not to think of himself and Sam, of Frank’s fists and his belt, but it’s hard not to.
Kirk forces his eyes back to the screen. This dissent was by no means the only thing Harry ever wrote; there are sizeable repositories of his work from throughout his long life. Harry lived to be ninety, Kirk discovers—another decade after his impromptu visit to the Enterprise.
Kirk shakes his head, rubs his eyes, tries to clear his mind, and keeps reading.
+||+||+
He’s still reading when Bones comes back a while later; he’s still reading when Bones gets out of the shower and puts on the Ole Miss T-shirt and ratty flannel pants that he sleeps in. “You’re still at that?” he says, sounding unsurprised.
“This guy was pretty fucking famous, Bones. He wrote a decision that legalized terminating a pregnancy—which I didn’t know was ever illegal—and he got death threats. The anti–death penalty people on the Federation Supreme Court still cite him, even though he lived 300 years ago and served on a court that doesn’t exist anymore.” Kirk sighs. “And he wanted some kind of justice for a kid that got the shit beaten out of him, and he didn’t get it.”
Bones takes the PADD out of Kirk’s hands and turns it off. Kirk starts to protest, and Bones replaces it with one of Kirk’s dad’s books, a volume of Isaac Bashevis Singer’s short stories. “Come to bed,” Bones says, gentle but firm in that way that he’s a stubborn bastard, “and read something else for a while.”
“I just want to finish—”
“You don’t need to read the entirety of American legal history tonight, Jim. Take a break and think about something else.”
Kirk can’t help it: he waggles his eyebrows. “You gonna give me something else to think about?”
“Can’t do that unless you’re in bed, kid,” Bones says, and turns toward it. He really does have a spectacular ass, even in those fugly pants.
“I hate it when you call me ‘kid.’”
Bones stretches out on top of the covers and finds his place in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, because Bones, underneath it all, is a comics nerd (who still hasn't figured out that he grew up hot). He raises an eyebrow, then shifts his gaze, as if unconcerned, to the book. “You planning on coming over here and doing something about it?”
Kirk puts down the Singer and, this time, is the one who divests his partner of reading material. He pins Bones’s wrists to the bed, and Bones grins up at him. “That all you’ve got?”
“Oh hell no,” Kirk says, and forecloses any further conversation with a hard kiss.
+||+||+
Naturally, though, Kirk can’t leave well enough alone. He’s off the next day and, still lazy and sated from some truly excellent morning sex, he uncoils on the bed after Bones leaves for his shift. He takes out his PADD, does another search, and downloads two biographies of Harry Blackmun.
“Sorry, Harry,” he says to the universe, hoping with a small irrational part of himself that, somewhere, somehow, Harry can hear him. “I’m not trying to be nosy; I’m just curious and you weren’t here long. I promise I’ll skip the salacious bits. Seriously.”
Content, he begins to read.
