Fic: And This Too Shall, 2/3. Gen.

[katydidmischief]

And This Too Shall
Part One
Part Two
Chapter EightIn the aftermath of Jim's eclamptic event, he'd been confined to bed by his doctors, mother, and Pike, and to everyone's surprise, he had remained there without complaint for the first week. Unsurprisingly, however, was that after the seventh day, Jim could no longer keep himself occupied nor could tolerate being told what to do and began to sneak out of his room; short trips to the bathroom became daring adventures, humming the theme to Indiana Jones under his breath every time he dared venture into the kitchen.

They'd all tried to get him to stop, to rest so his body didn't have to throw it self into overdrive – his heart simply didn't need any more strain than was already on it – but Jim refused to listen and by the middle of August, he suffered a second seizure. Refusing to allow someone to bathe him, Jim had bullied Pike into letting him have a shower, which would never happen again, and as he'd washed the shampoo from his hair, his chest had begun to hurt and his head ached and the next time he was conscious, Anderson had been standing over him with a disappointed look on his face.

“You really need to take it easy,” McCoy told him as he ran the tricorder wand over him the morning after the seizure.

His eyes never left the screen as he worked, a little annoyed by Jim's inattentiveness to his own health; he had at least another month before his daughter would have a real chance at survival. He had to stop acting like a teenager which was a hard thing to ask of someone who was a teenager, but especially hard to ask of Jim. He'd already been through so much yet they continued to ask of him things that no child should have to think about – prenatal vitamin hypos, medications to speed the growth of the fetus' lungs, heart, and brain, bedrest, and his own meds to control the spiking blood pressure.

“I know,” Jim muttered in reply. And he did. He well and truly did know that every demand and instruction was meant not simply with the best intentions, but to sustain his life and the life of the little girl he'd already started calling Elizabeth in his mind. However, outright defiance was how he'd dealt with any constraints on him since he was old enough to talk and no matter how much he needed it, it was chaffing to be hunted down by his mother to administer hypos or ordered to bed by Pike.

“You don't act like you know.” Leonard regretted the words the minute they were out of his mouth – he didn't want Jim on the defensive and his statement could easily be misconstrued as an attack of the boy's actions. He was disappointed by Jim's behavior and the way he appeared to care little for either his child's health or his own, very much so; by the same token, though, Leonard was somewhat in awe of the kid, the endless strength he exhibited by refusing to allow his stepfather's reprehensible actions to completely destroy him. Because of that, he wanted nothing more than to be Jim's ally, his friend – not just the Intern assigned to his case – and his heart twisted at the idea of damaging the fledgling bond of trust that'd grown between them over the prior weeks.

“I do.” Jim was relaxed and calm on the biobed, looking at him like there was absolutely no issue with what McCoy had said and the elder breathed a sigh of relief, waiting for whatever the kid would say next. It was a mere moment before Jim went on, admitting, “I just... I don't think I'm used to being taken care of. I know mom kind of regrets leaving me behind because of this – she does care – but she wasn't here when I was a little kid and I pretty much fended for myself.”

Leonard nodded, understanding what Jim said though he disagreed: Jim was used to being 'taken care of', just not in any socially acceptable way. He was used to harsh words, raised hands, and acts so heinous Leonard couldn't stand to name them. Care without condition, that was new, and it had to have been unnerving at first, but Jim would grow accustomed to it in time.

For now, however, he had to submit to the medical treatments, to the advice, they gave him if he wanted to live to see his upcoming birthday. There simply wasn't a way around it – there was no magic pill they could give Kirk that'd fix the myriad of health problems short of delivery and that was not an option yet.

Comfortable in the silence for a minute, Jim stared up at the ceiling and wondered; he hadn't even told his therapist how little he'd been sleeping, still too unsure how the woman would react to hearing how terrified Jim was of birthing the girl, how he sometimes spent hours trying to decide what to do after she was born. Should he put her up for adoption? Should he ask his mother to raise her as Winona's own? Should he track down Sam to ask if he would?

Should he sacrifice his new-found chance at having something close to a normal life and raise his daughter himself? Or was that too selfish, too childish a desire?

“I can't sleep. When I can't sleep, I pace or I run or something that burns the energy out so I can,” he admitted, eyes settled on McCoy's. “It's like my brain won't turn off, even if I try to think of nothing at all. I can lay there at night for hours and I just can't sleep.”

“Well, we can give you sedatives. Doctor Anderson's been sending every medication he can think of through the computers to see what dosages of things we can give you – I'm sure seds are included. But,” Leonard paused, leaning forward to rest his arms on the bed after discarding the tricorder to the bedside table, “I think you and I both know why you can't sleep.”

“And why's that?” Jim challenged.

“Crazily enough, Kirk, I think you're stressed,” Leonard answered. With one raised eyebrow, he softly added, “Which you have every right to be, but you need to let it go before your blood pressure shoots through the roof again – the last thing you want is go into a seizure that we can't pull you out of.”

The boy shrugged, twisting his fingers together and pushed his head back into the soft padding. He knew McCoy was pushing him, prodding him, trying to get Jim to talk; normally they kept their conversations to safe topics like VR games, his medical state, and cars. Sometimes they'd argue science – the kid was a hell of a lot more intelligent then he allowed people to see – or discuss mathematics while Jim underwent his tests, but this issue was in murkier waters.

“I don't know what to do with her,” he muttered, “After, I mean.”

Leonard nodded, Jim's admission sinking in and he finally understood what the kid had been getting so worked up over. “Don't worry about that for right now, all right? You have a lot of options if you don't want to raise her yourself – which, Jim, no one's really expecting you to – but that's one of those things that can wait because there's no deadline you've gotta meet.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Jim rubbed his eyes and yawned, the question tumbling from his lips, “Would you take her? If you could?”

“I don't know about that, buddy,” McCoy told him, Matt's speech from earlier in the case coming back to slap him in the face. Don't get too close. He's a good kid, but if you get close, you lose your objectivity and if you lose that, you can't treat him anymore. You can't do that now, you can't do that in the future, and you're too damned good to waste your time going through school like this to burn out because you feel for every patient that walks through the door. Detachment, Leonard, learn it before you get yourself in a hole.

Jim had drifted off and thankfully did not hear his quiet declaration of, “Fuck,” before fleeing the room.

Chapter NineMatt found him one of the Emergency Department's supply closets, sitting on an overturned bucket with his head in his hands and a pinched expression on his face; he looked wrung out, burned out, and far older than a person of his twenty-one years, which made Anderson sigh. They needed good doctors, not just in the Federation but elsewhere; the profession, though still a grand and well-respected one, had lost hundreds of good people to burn out, low-stress positions on other worlds, and lack of appropriate funds.

Fact was most of the men and women currently trained in the medical field came in via one of the following methods: a wealthy background, Starfleet, some sort of scholarship program, or after years of working while taking the minimum of classes. They could not afford to lose McCoy, who was already showing clear brilliance – his side work in virology had astounded the scientific community as people his age rarely had their names published in Medical Journals.

Anderson stepped closer, not bothering to approach with any amount of stealth; his goal was to gain Leonard's attention, after all. Of course, tripping over one of the broken sanitizing units someone had stuck in here, stumbling over his own feet, and then slamming into the wall was not how he'd intended to do it but it did have the effect of making the young man laugh so he was not terribly upset with the flub.

“Grace is clearly not my strong suit,” Matt remarked as he straightened and dragged a sealed carton of sterile gauze over to plop down on. The whoosh of air when he sat induced a smirk on both their faces, easing some of the tension that had filled the room until Matt asked, “So. You going to tell me what's got you upset?”

Leonard groaned and turned his gaze to the floor, every muscle and tendon in his shoulder and back going tight. He balled his hands into fists, silent for a few minutes; his jaw was clenched and it popped out of and into place when McCoy opened his mouth to ask, “Is it possible for students to burn out?”

“Yeah, but that's not what's got you upset,” Matt replied, leaning back against the smooth end of a shelving unit. No, what had McCoy worked up was decidedly not burn out or the fear of it, the contemplation of whether or not a mere student could experience such, and it didn't take a genius mind to determine the source: the last patient chart McCoy's ID code had appeared on was Jim Kirk's.

The lift of one eyebrow challenged Anderson, like a silent taunt.

Anderson crossed his arms in response.

McCoy caved – his mentor had already shown himself to be a strong, forthright man who loathed Leonard's wallows – and he knew that this time he was not going to get away with hiding in his room or drinking himself to oblivion as his own father was prone to. He stretched his legs out before him, letting his hands fall onto his knees, stating, “He asked me if I'd, hypothetically, adopt his daughter.”

“I see,” Matt remarked with pursed lips as he forced himself to remain calm because yelling wouldn't help the situation – McCoy had gotten too close, something many starting physicians did and it wasn't a fault or a failure. He was human, he had emotions and, in time, he would learn how to keep himself at a distance, but nothing tugged at the heartstrings more than a broken, scared kid. That hadn't stopped Anderson from trying to keep McCoy from forming an overly friendly bond with Kirk, but he would admit, if asked, that he'd seen it coming. “What did you tell him?”

“That I didn't know,” Leonard answered. “He said he didn't know what to do with the infant once it's born then asked me if I'd take it and I said I didn't know.”

Matt groaned. Traditionally speaking, giving vague yet placating answers was a method Anderson approved of – it kept patients calm and gave him a little more time to work out diagnoses and treatments. He used them with his own wife on occasion, particularly when he had to miss something important, but Jim was in an emotionally delicate state. Giving him any fodder for self-recrimination or upset could topple him back to square one and the angry, scathing boy they'd met just a few weeks ago. He needed the concrete to the unknown, facts over possibilities, and Matt prayed that they would not suffer too many consequences for the short conversation.

“Well, I suggest you figure it out, Leonard, because that kid,” Matt said, bending forward at the waist until he was able to plant his elbows on his knees and hang his hands between them, “is not going to forget it. He'll ask again because right now, you're the closest thing to a friend he has – you're around his age, you like that VR imaginary crap, and you treat him well – and he's not going to let it go. You're his sounding board.”

McCoy shot him a terrified look. “I can't adopt his kid! That's illegal - I'd be setting myself up to be brought before the Board of Ethics.”

“Really? Funny thing, Medical Student McCoy, is that while we let you practice medicine under specific confines and allow you a range of freedom, you have not yet passed your exams despite the number of people, including yourself, whom call you Doctor. You could be forced to retake some of your psych classes, they might even make you take a few classes on professional boundaries, but you cannot be brought before the Board of Ethics quite yet nor lose your license before you've gotten it.

“That is, of course, if you want to adopt Jim's baby,” he added, cocking his head to one side and pulling an arm up to splay a hand across his knee. “If you don't, there's a library across campus. Free access to cadets and staff and you've got the next two shift cycles off anyway – you'll find options to give him.”

“His social worker's already given him a list.” Leonard shifted, finally moving from the position he'd lingered in perhaps a bit too long as his knees cracked almost painfully and the crick in his neck refused to ease in spite of the stretching he gave it; he blew out the breath he'd been holding, a little less upset then he'd been earlier.

“That doesn't mean he's actually thought about them and that doesn't mean he'll stop fixating on you,” Anderson shot back, a small grin on his lips, “Which, I think, brings us to the actual problem – you've been trying to figure out why, of everyone, he's picked you, right? Why he asked you if you'd take her and not Pike or me or even Christine?”

He waited for the nod, sure he had the younger man's attention before Matt admitted, “Because he thinks you're a good man.”

“And how do you figure that?” McCoy shot back. By his own count, he was a good doctor, a pretty good son when he wasn't chasing his father around trying to determine the cause of the man's sudden exhaustion, and a decent fiance. He smiled and cracked jokes, liked a good comedy movie, and enjoyed spending Saturday nights in the salon with friends. None of that meant he was an altogether good person – he drank, he smoked, he argued religion with priests, and cursed like a sailor.

Leonard was, simply put, human. Nothing more, nothing less, and certainly not one ready to be a father.

“Trust me, he does. If you want the reasons, you'll have to talk to him, but until then, I suggest you spend your downtime doing some thinking.” Anderson stood, patting McCoy on the shoulder as he told the other, “Particularly about how, in the future, you can distance yourself appropriately from patients. There will be a quiz,” and smirked at the snort that echoed behind him.

Chapter TenJocelyn Darnell was a quiet, demure woman despite her background; boisterous and sometimes overwhelming, the Darnell family had originated in Louisiana, New Orleans specifically, and loved to throw elaborate parties in a style all their own. Summertime had often found their sleepy little Georgian town awash in the scent of smoking meats and cooking crawfish; alligator meat was an oft seen food at one of their gatherings, usually beside the catfish that Leonard ate with gusto, while three generations of Darnell men labored over an ancient grill. The women were normally found flitting between tables and the house, sitting only in brief moments to chat about the inane goings-on of their neighbors.

The youngest daughter of John and Felicia, however, had never really partaken in the festivities. She'd usually make a few quick appearances during the meal, snacking on fried okra and stealing dumplings out of a large pot, before sliding back into the house to sit in an open bay window with a book. She was never loud or looking to be the center of attention like her sisters and preferred pomegranate juice to alcohol and she'd caught Leonard's attention in a way no one had previously.

With his intentions to be a doctor and his father proclaimed to be an honest man thus making Leonard one, John had given his permission for Leonard to date his daughter and their relationship had blossomed quickly. In mere weeks, they'd started talking of engagement and marriage, about children, their future and growing old together and eleven months in, McCoy had gone to ask for the blessing of her parents, proposing to the then-nineteen year old with the promise that they would wed between his graduation from med school and his residency.

The time meant they could make plans – their dream home, names for the babies they'd one day hold, whether they would remain nearby to their parents or leave to try life completely on their own – and prepare for what promised to be the wedding of the century if Jocelyn had her way. There had been no shimmy room for things to change, no give in the plans, which was how they'd both liked it.

Now, as Leonard sat down before a blank PADD with a stark white cursor blinking merrily away, he wondered if perhaps they'd been in error – they had another two years before the wedding and their life together could begin, had they been too quick to outline how those years would go? How the ones after would? Could they break that rigidity for something important?

McCoy gave himself a mental smack. He could not seriously be thinking about asking Jocelyn if they wanted to adopt a child already - it was much too early and, really, it would be improper for him to expect her to become a mother on a whim. He was still in school, damnit; she'd be raising the girl mostly alone while he spent days in classes, days up to his elbows in cadavers and technology, and without a ring on her finger – it simply wouldn't be fair or right. The town would talk...

He winced just the same as the cursor continued to mock him, daring him to type out something, anything, until he slammed it down on the tiny coffee table. One hand came up to rub his eyes as they had earlier in the day, yawning when the raw exhaustion caused by his last shift crashed into him; he needed rest, not contemplation about topics he shouldn't have to think about in the first place. Yes, he'd put himself in this position, but he could get himself out of it: he just had to tell Jim a flat-out no and then go over the boy's options with him.

“You look positively drained, Len.”

McCoy whipped around, his neck giving an audible click as he turned to see the softly smiling woman in his bedroom doorway. “Jocelyn,” he murmured, his voice filled with relief and longing – he'd missed her in the weeks he'd been in San Francisco, loathing that though they could write, the time differential and his shifts had taken any chance of a real-time talk from them. There'd been no way to hear the lilting, melodic quality of her voice nor the swish of one of her white cotton dresses as she moved from room to room, the bubbling simmer of something delicious on the stove while she helped her mother cook.

“Doctor Anderson called,” she admitted once he'd stumbled to her, wrapping his arms around her middle and burying his face in her shoulder. “Said you're needing a bit of home and that some peach cobbler wasn't gonna do it.”

Pulling his face away from the cotton of her blouse, Leonard pulled back to press a chaste kiss to her lips. “I am so ridiculously glad that you're here,” he murmured, both hands coming up to frame her tanned face – clearly she'd been reading out in the yard again, the sun beating down on her when she fell asleep against the pages of one of her romance novels.

“Me too,” she grinned. “It's a bit boring, all summer, waitin' for your letters. And without you around to save me from it, I've been doing more canning than a girl in this day and age should be.”

He laughed at the admission, amused at the idea alone that Jocelyn – sweet, technologically advanced Jocelyn who preferred steel to porcelain and refused to entertain the thought of life without food synthesizers – had been spending time canning with her mother, and kissed her again. He felt the tension bleed away, leaving him with her fingers as she stroked them down his side and when he released her face from the bracket of his hands to wind their fingers together, he began to grin.

“So, darlin', you going to tell me what's got you in a tizzy or should I call that nice Doctor Anderson who seems to think you're fallin' to pieces without me?” she asked after taking a step back, leaving her hands in his.

McCoy sighed at that and swallowed thickly, wondering how precisely to explain what had been going on while keeping the confidential facts to himself – he was still bound by privacy laws, whether or not Jim was offering to give them a child. He fell back onto the chair he'd been sitting in when she'd announced her presence, looked up at her through doleful eyes and asked, “What would you think, hypothetically, if I had the chance to adopt a child?”

“I'd say yes, of course,” she laughed though she cast him a curious stare. “We've talked about this already – once we have a house with a nice big yard, we'll have the big family to fill it with...”

“No, Jocelyn, I mean right now. If we had the chance to adopt a baby, would you want to do it? Would you be willing to put up with me in class every day until graduation and a baby?” he explained, watching her carefully for a sign of her answer. The taste, the desire of want this, please, was on his tongue, his fingers twitching from the anxiety; it hit him suddenly that though he'd fought it, telling himself it was ethically wrong and that he'd make a terrible father at his age, his heart wanted what Jim was offering.

Sparkling eyes met his.

Chapter ElevenWhen Jim was born, Winona had quickly become an expert in premature infants; respiratory problems, issues with sight and hearing, hyperactivity, learning problems, digestive problems. There were several dozen medical repercussions that could've find him put at a disadvantage so early in life, so many things that could have made him sickly and that just hadn't been acceptable.

Thankfully his minor eye problem had been corrected within hours of his birth, the nutrient hypos – the standard therapy for infants who are too young to nurse properly – stopped within six months, and his chronic asthma had been mild enough to not even need treatment. By the time he turned ten, he could run three miles without wheezing and he hadn't had bronchitis in over a year; Winona had just about done a dance back then, believing Jim's worst health problems were done with.

Now she wished for those days again, when the worst they dealt with was chasing Jim down to give him medication or force him to the doctor for a simple check-up. Give her a child hiding in his closet to avoid the antibiotics that'd cure him any day because this was agony: Jim's belly, a soft, healthy curve, had grown slowly over the weeks, until his middle became too large to allow him to sleep in more than snatches, unable to get comfortable in any position, and his morning sickness, just horrific nausea before, kicked up again. He couldn't sleep and he could barely keep his food down. His emotions were all over the map as his already-unbalanced hormones raged through his body, his inability to control them causing even more upset.

“Mom,” Jim whimpered one night, crawling onto the couch so his head could rest in her lap. “My head hurts.”

Like she had each time he'd said those words before, Winona wound the fingers of one hand through Jim's short blond hair, rubbing over his scalp in a soothing gesture. George had suffered from migraines throughout his life, resulting in many an afternoon spent somewhere quiet and dim with her hands doing exactly as they were now. It'd never failed to ease the throb in his temples and it had seemed, lately, to be just as good for their son, making it possible for him to garner what little rest he could as he continued to struggle through the last few weeks before the scheduled c-section.

“Chris,” she called after a few minutes of the petting failed to ease Jim's headache, intuition kicking her in the gut. The same feeling she'd had when Jim had collapsed at their reunion came shooting back and she pressed a hand to his forehead, a gentle warmth there hinting at a low-grade fever. His toes were twitching, his eyes clenched against the pain, and as Pike entered the room, looking startled, she ordered, “Call Anderson. Right now.”

He did not need to be told twice, fingers flying over the comm unit and praying the man would answer quickly – Jim's fingers were beginning to tremble; the boy was starting to curl in on himself, protecting his belly unconsciously as he let out a whimper as he pressed the heels of both hands into his eyes and blinked, most likely at the resultant colors.

“Commander.”

Anderson's voice grabbed his attention, causing Pike's head to snap back and he greeted the doctor with a curt, “I'm formally alerting you that we're bringing Jim over – he's getting ready to seizure,” then added, “Severe seizure, not the eclamptic.”

“What?” Matt asked, confused as all hell – Sidetracks in Medical did teach about seizures since they're the most common medical complication people came across, but not in enough detail that Pike would be able to identify the immediate signs preceding a Tonic-Clonic. “How do you know?”

“Besides the involuntary twitching, the rhythmic clenching and unclenching of his hands, and the fact that I'm damn sure he's seeing auras, he just started craning his head. Now you want to argue or do you want us to get over there before he aspirates himself?” Pike shot back, hoping the urgency in his voice relayed the very real fear that had set in. Jim could not go any longer; they'd pushed his body beyond what he was capable of and if he went into a Tonic-Clonic, they faced him possibly going into Status Epilepticus, something he paled at the thought of.

Tossing a jacket at Winona, Chris carefully lifted Jim from her lap, ignoring his cries against the pain of being moved, and hefted the boy into his arms. Without looking back or needing so much as a statement of permission to go, Pike ran, nearly leaping down his stoop and caring little that his keys would likely get left behind as they raced across the grounds of Starfleet Academy toward the Hospital; there was a considerable distance between his assigned housing and his destination, but it would be faster to run than to wait for transport.

Jim continued to twitch in Pike's arms and slowly, the elder man began to lose sight of the world around him, his mind focusing in on one thing: the need to get Jim to the people with the skill to save him, to safety. He noticed none of the cadets jumping out of his path, did not hear the yells of his peers, nor saw the glow of the red letters in the distance.

All Chris could hear was the rush of blood in his ears, Winona's feet as they slapped against the Earth in a hard run.

All he could feel was Jim's weak breaths against his exposed skin, the weight of the boy in his hold.

All he could see was Leonard McCoy, surgical scrubs already on, looking ready to faint, but as he scooped Jim easily from Chris, his resolve seemed to strengthen and his lips set in a firm line. “Fucking hell, kid,” he muttered as he turned, racing through a set of double doors just as Jim began to seize, his body finally losing control.

Chapter Twelve”Jesus Christ!”

“Watch his head, damnit! He's not a fucking pinata!”

“Where the hell is Anderson?”

“He's in Status. Now would be a good time for those meds, Leonard!”

“Motherfucker... His goddamn heart's going arrhythmic, surgery better be ready for us!”

“Jim? Jim, buddy, you awake?”

When Jim, at long last, came back to himself, it was to the soft, purring whirr of the oxygen mask over his face and the glow of florescent lights floating brightly above his eyes. Beside him, a doctor with slanted eyes was staring at a control screen as a hand threaded rhythmically through Jim's hair and out of instinct he cried out, thrashing his head to the side, but he was both too weak and too medicated to do more than gain the attention of everyone in the surgical suite.

“Jim,” a disembodied voice called out, yanking the offending hand away from the boy's head and declaring, “It's okay,” before McCoy's face came swimming into view, hazel eyes settling onto blue. It calmed him some, anxiety still causing the cardiac monitor above his head to wail as his heart raced, pounding a staccato against his ribs.

He felt numb from the waist down, his arms were sore from the seizure and his head spun with nausea; Jim wanted to vomit and cry at the same time, unable to look away from Leonard's steady gaze. “Listen to me, Jim – you've had a major seizure followed by a cardiac event. Your body isn't capable of carrying the baby any longer,” McCoy explained, cut off when Anderson yelled, “I've got her!” and clapping reverberated the room.

For a moment, Kirk was relieved as a second cardiac monitor filled his ears with the noise of his child's own steady heart rate. She was alive – tiny, he was sure – but alive and breathing, cooed at by nurses as they hurriedly dried her and set up monitoring equipment; Jim, were it possible, would have asked to hold her, only he knew what would come now: complete hysterectomy.

A panicking thought for any person, especially a young man, Jim had been counseled quietly over the preceding weeks about his options regarding his second set of sex organs – removal of the ovaries while allowing the uterus and vaginal opening to remain or removal of both. There was no third option as nearly eighty percent of intact Intersexed Males eventually developed major health problems including cancer and permanent hormonal imbalances, and given his luck, Jim would not fall into the twenty percent who lived happy, healthy lives.

More than the health risks, Jim was being offered the chance to be fully male physically if not genetically and he had made his choice based on the realization that for once, he could fit in. He wouldn't have to hide himself in the gym before and after class to change, he wouldn't have to feel like he was living a lie, and, according to McCoy, his hormone levels, which had shown themselves to be just balanced enough that his body knew it was male but not enough to push him through the final stage of puberty, would balance out properly.

“Sexual maturity, Jim. You haven't even touched yourself, which is completely okay, but a normal part of growing up is developing a sex drive and you have no concept of that. It'll probably freak you out at first, because you're going to be overloaded on testosterone since your body forced an overproduction of it in order for it to override the estrogen, but it'll level off. Just remember, you've got me and Matt and I'm sure Pike'll listen if you need a talk, okay?” McCoy had told him, trying to broach the topic as gently as he could though Jim had still flinched a little at the idea.

“Jim,” Leonard cut into his thoughts, dragging Jim back, groggily, to the present and the man looming concernedly over him. “Doctor Brash'a is going to give you some medication and when you wake up next, it'll be in your Recovery room.”

He squeezed Jim's shoulder, offering a moment of comfort before a hypo was pressed to his neck and the boy fell into blessed darkness, his eyelids fluttering shut; McCoy let out the breath he'd been holding as the monitors displayed Jim's vitals – steady, though all bordered on abnormal. His heart rate was all right though and that was the most important, the computer already compensating for his oddly balanced electrolytes, his spiking hormones.

“Leonard, get your ass over here and watch,” Matt called out, attempting to tear the younger man's attention away from Kirk though he knew it was likely a lesson in futility.

“Just fucking fix the kid,” he shot back; his eyes refused to unglue themselves from the screens as one of the anesthesiologists handed over his tricorder before shoving Leonard forcefully from his line of sight. He tried desperately to not be affected by the wet sounds of Kirk's split flesh, the splat of organs when the uterus and ovaries were pulled free of his abdomen and dropped carelessly into a stainless steel basin, but the bile was rising in his throat.

He understood suddenly why doctors normally refused to work on their own family members as his stomach roiled and his mouth went acidic; he'd known Jim Kirk only a few weeks, yet it'd clearly been long enough that the boy had earned himself a place in the twenty-one year old's life.

Slowly, Leonard became lightheaded, his breaths coming in pants and his eyes went unfocused. In his mind, a recitation began, repeating over and over and over, I will not pass out. I will not pass out. But even as the regenerators were pushed over his skin, sealing muscle, sinew, and skin back together in long seconds, and the nurses moved in to clean the surgical site, McCoy felt the world go sideways and the air seemed to get thinner.

Vaguely, as he hit the hard, metal floor, McCoy heard Anderson declare, “Two months before he fainted. Pay up, DiNozzo.”

Chapter ThirteenIt was three days before Jim was able to hold Elizabeth, her condition good but still under close watch as her lungs continued to grow in the controlled environment of the hospital's Neonatal ICU and his own monitored for any complications that could have arisen from the C-Section and consequent surgery.

“Hi, Liz,” he murmured to the tiny infant as he tightened his grip on her; she wouldn't have been able to fall from his embrace, her tiny movements not nearly enough to wiggle free, but Jim was still inherently nervous. His mother had assured, when he'd panicked at the news that he'd soon be brought the girl, that all parents had anxiety with their first child.

From her seat beside his bed, Winona gave a small smile and directed, “Support her head, Jimmy. She can't hold it up herself, so you've got to do it.” Her eyes watered some as Jim shifted his arms and moved his elbow to rest under the newborn's head, supporting it even when he lifted her against him, her belly to his chest and Jim nuzzled at the tuft of blonde hair.

This, most assuredly, was not how she'd ever intended to greet her grandchild. Not the firstborn, at least; she'd had dreams of nice girls for Jim and for Sam, of good, happy homes with their wives, and little boys – as the Kirk line tended toward – that played in mud and built forts in the living room and watched movies about space. Meeting a little girl, squinty and premature, in the arms of her fifteen year old son who'd birthed her himself, had nearly broken Winona's heart.

Oh, George, she thought, watching Jim rub circles into Elizabeth's back, I'm so sorry.

For a second she nearly let the tears fall, lost in the font of overwhelming grief that was George's absence from their lives. How angry would he be if he were here now? How sad? How vengeful? Of all the things in the universe he'd tolerated and lived through, someone having touched his son in any malicious way would have incited the quiet man to a rage, of that she was sure.

“Mom,” Jim whispered, “Is she asleep?”

Winona looked up, two tiny slivers of blue met hers and the sadness washed away. Her eyes, crystal clear and perfect, were the same gorgeous color of Jim's, of George's, and when faced with that, the woman could do nothing more than melt. Her granddaughter may have come to be through horrific circumstances, but in that moment, it didn't matter: Jim was resting, lax and comfortable for the first time since Winona had arrived in Frisco, with Elizabeth laying calmly against him.

He looked happy.

"No, baby, she's awake – probably enjoying listening to your heart," she answered with a small smile on her lips, the thought of a righteously angry George fading away to the memory of Jim's infancy. Oh, how he'd loved to lay on her in the early days, his perfect little ear against her flesh; it'd been the only way she could get him to rest some nights.

Opening her mouth to explain just why Elizabeth was so contented, Winona was cut off by the side of the door behind her. There, Pike stood in his civvies, carrying a proper breakfast for the two adults along with a set of coffee cups and a grin that Jim soon mirrored.

"Ah, I see someone's come to visit her dad," he said, moving to the empty chair beside Winona before carefully handing over the steaming beverage. It smelled heavenly – perfectly made and just as she liked it, which meant Chris had clearly gone off the Campus for it – and she savored the first sip, letting it relax her after several days of unrelenting stress. Seriously, there was nothing like a good cup of joe to soothe a battered psyche in her expert opinion.

Jim, while his mother indulged in her favorite vice, smiled up at Pike, replying, "They said she could be out of NICU for an hour since her lungs are better."

"That's great, Jim."

"Yeah. Leonard said that her heart needs to be a little stronger before they'll release her though." Jim brushed his fingers over one soft cheek, sighing as he realized she'd fallen asleep. He was almost tempted to poke the infant until she woke, but his mother's hand on his knee made him think twice as she told him, "Babies sleep quite a bit, Jimmy. Especially premature newborns."

He nodded; Kirk had been well-schooled by Anderson and McCoy about what to expect in the first days, including that most of Elizabeth's time with him the first few weeks would be filled with long intervals of rest. Her body needed it to continue developing appropriately, only Jim had wished desperately that she would defy the norm and be a wakeful child. Really, he had, wanting more memories than that of a sleeping infant to cherish, as that would be all he had.

Sighing again, Jim let his eyes fall on Winona.

He'd not yet told her that he had decided that the best thing to do for both himself and Elizabeth, was to put her up for adoption. Though he and Leonard had discussed all his options at length and several times over, Jim had made his decision not long after he had woken in his recovery room: keeping her wasn't an option, not right now, and letting Winona raise her, though it would keep Elizabeth close, wouldn't be best either. She was beautiful and his and he loved her, but she carried the reminder of what he'd endured and what he'd yet to deal with.

No, adoption was best for them all. She could go to a home with parents that would cherish her without bias and he could get the solace of knowing that.

"I... I did a lot of thinking," he started, pausing to kiss the soft, downy hair. "About Elizabeth. And me. And what was... right for us..."

For their part, neither Winona nor Chris spoke as Jim went on, unsurprised by his words. After all, they'd both known from the start that it was more than unlikely that the young man would want to keep the babe – he had a lot to heal from. They were not disappointed him, nor upset, and for Winona, there was a sensation of relief that flooded her; raising a child took so much emotionally and physically that she had not wanted to see Jim run ragged and she had not been looking forward to doing so herself, though if her son had asked, she'd have done it.

"There's no shame in this, Jim," she assured when he finished and looked away, a blush on his neck and tears in his eyes. "No one's going to look down on you for not wanting to keep her, baby."

"I know. Is it... is it wrong that I'm going to miss her though?"

"Oh, no, no it's not," she answered without hesitation; Winona moved from her chair to his side. "This is your daughter, Jimmy, and she'll always be in your heart. But we're going to find her a good home where she'll be the center of her daddy's world. Somewhere that she doesn't ever have to hear the name Frank Burkott, somewhere that she can just be a little girl, okay?"

He sniffled a little, letting one corner of his mouth curve up in a tiny half-smile, and nodded in agreement though he knew their search would be short: Jim knew already just who would be taking Elizabeth home.

Chapter FourteenThey'd agreed to meet at the shuttle bay to say goodbye.

Just five days after her birth, Elizabeth had been deemed healthy enough to leave the confines of the NICU and forty-eight hours after that, the hospital altogether. Jim had been discharged at the same time, his stay having been prolonged by both his medical and psychological teams when his hormones had begun to change and level off.

Concern for his welfare had given Jim more time with the infant, allowing him to form the memories he'd needed to soothe his battered nerves. He'd fed her and burped her, changed a diaper, and rocked her to sleep and watched Jocelyn Darnell do the same until the day Leonard and Matt had agreed that father and daughter were safe to be released.

Which had lead them to their current location, a loose circle of friends standing mere feet from the shuttle that would take Winona and Jim back to Iowa for the time being. Chris Pike, Matt Anderson, Leonard, and the future Mrs. McCoy cradling Elizabeth in her arms; they said their goodbyes and offered promises. Jocelyn whispered to Jim, "Comm whenever you want to see her."

Jim only nodded, too caught up in the power and the sadness of the moment to answer. Instead he placed a soft kiss to the sleeping babe's forehead, drawing a hand down the swell of one small cheek; she barely stirred under his touch, merely opened her mouth to suck on the tip of a finger when it slid too close to her lips.

He swallowed around the lump in his throat – this was the best thing for them both, Jim knew, so he could have as close to a normal life as he could and she wouldn't have to live with the stigma of being the daughter of an Intersex born from abuse. Her daddy would read her bedtime stories and her momma would braid her hair; she would have a nice home and good food and a big Southern family to dote on her. All the things Jim couldn't give.

"Love you," he finally murmured, fingering a lock of the soft blonde hair on her head.

Behind him the pilot called out for Last Boarding, and Winona sighed as she reached for Leonard, hugging him tight. "Take good care of our girl," she told him, mouth to his ear. "Be good to her."

"I will," he promised as she released him. "Swear to God, I will."

She patted his shoulder; "Good man," she nodded, turning toward the shuttle, stopping only to squeeze Chris Pike's extended hand in passing.

She pulled Jim tightly to her as they moved up the stairs, dropping a kiss onto his temple before they slipped inside the body of the craft and disappeared from view.

Epilogue