But when he raises it with Chapel, she just smiles and shrugs and reinforces the pathetic little note that Bones left for him. Joints, right? Bones is in his forties. Not young, sure, but these days that's not ancient, either, and Jim's pretty sure he'd know already if Bones had any real trouble with arthritis. They've spent too much time together for the older man to be any fucking good at hiding if he was dealing with chronic pain.
There's not enough time, though. They're the only ship in the quadrant - first time for everything, sigh - and Jim barely sleeps through the 72 hour layover. They get restocked, rearmed, and all the engines get reScottyed, then they're out of there. The Enterprise screams into a little system near the Klingon border, saves the day, blah blah blah.
Jim reads and rereads the message, and shakes his head. He sends one back. A couple more. All completely normal and pleasant and accepting. It's bullshit, of course.
He even, to his great horror, ends up consulting Spock.
In the end, with Spock's help, he applies for leave, and gets his ass on a high speed warp courier back to Earth. There's no bed, and the shielding ain't great, jangling through his bones and his nerves for the entire trip, but then he's back on Earth, and out for blood.
Well. He's out for an explanation, at least.
He knows Bones is at home. So he picks up a decent bottle of Scotch at the dingy little spaceport, splashes cold water on his face, and hops a shuttle out to the cottage.
He'll figure out how to play it when he sees how Bones reacts, but he's not going to give him any warning, just in case. It's four in the afternoon, and he's about to rap on the door.
no subject
But when he raises it with Chapel, she just smiles and shrugs and reinforces the pathetic little note that Bones left for him. Joints, right? Bones is in his forties. Not young, sure, but these days that's not ancient, either, and Jim's pretty sure he'd know already if Bones had any real trouble with arthritis. They've spent too much time together for the older man to be any fucking good at hiding if he was dealing with chronic pain.
There's not enough time, though. They're the only ship in the quadrant - first time for everything, sigh - and Jim barely sleeps through the 72 hour layover. They get restocked, rearmed, and all the engines get reScottyed, then they're out of there. The Enterprise screams into a little system near the Klingon border, saves the day, blah blah blah.
Jim reads and rereads the message, and shakes his head. He sends one back. A couple more. All completely normal and pleasant and accepting. It's bullshit, of course.
He even, to his great horror, ends up consulting Spock.
In the end, with Spock's help, he applies for leave, and gets his ass on a high speed warp courier back to Earth. There's no bed, and the shielding ain't great, jangling through his bones and his nerves for the entire trip, but then he's back on Earth, and out for blood.
Well. He's out for an explanation, at least.
He knows Bones is at home. So he picks up a decent bottle of Scotch at the dingy little spaceport, splashes cold water on his face, and hops a shuttle out to the cottage.
He'll figure out how to play it when he sees how Bones reacts, but he's not going to give him any warning, just in case. It's four in the afternoon, and he's about to rap on the door.