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jaye_voyTitle: Snapshots, 8/12 (Draft Version)
Author: Jaye (Copyright May 2013)
Codes: ST:XI Pike/McCoy, NC-17
Summary: Scenes from two lives coming together.
See PART 1 for disclaimer, author's notes, and guest cast.
Previous chapters: HERE
***************
CHAPTER 8
A few days after New Year's...
Chris had no warning. He was passing the door when he heard the chime and waved it open.
Brynn stood there.
He blinked, struck dumb for the moment.
She had changed little in the passing years. Age was sharpening rather than softening the angles of jaw and cheekbone. Her hair was the same carefully tamed wave of brown, her eyes a wary blue. "Hello, Chris."
"Brynn." Chris stepped back. "Uh, come on in."
Chris noted that Brynn's gold command tunic still held her commander's stripes. "You set for tomorrow?"
"I think so." Stern lips quirked in the hint of a smile as Brynn glanced at him over her shoulder. "I hope so."
He waved Brynn to the couch and headed to the square of counter he used as a makeshift bar. It took only a moment to find Brynn's favorite brand of gin.
His lifted brows were answered with a nod as Brynn settled on the couch. He quickly crafted a gin and tonic, adding ice from the freezer unit and a twist of lime. He skipped the gin in his own.
Brynn leaned forward to accept the glass, cool fingers brushing his. "Abstaining?"
"For the moment. Actually, I'm hoping to celebrate a reunion later." Chris settled into a chair.
Brynn hummed an acknowledgement as she swallowed. "Leonard, right?"
"Yes." He let the silence hold for a beat. "How about you?"
"Well, I'm not abstaining." Brynn lifted one shoulder. "But there's no one in particular at the moment."
Ironic, the awkward silence that fell. Chris could remember evenings on the Fortitude, playing Go and discussing politics with Brynn until the next shift rolled around.
That was before Talos IV.
Chris set aside his glass and leaned forward, his elbows braced on his thighs. "How are you, Brynn?"
"I'm OK." That small smile again. "Chris, it wasn't the end of the world."
He huffed a laugh. "I never claimed I was the be-all and end-all of anybody's existence---least of all yours."
"Well, I know I wasn't yours. Y'think that was part of the problem?" Brynn drew one leg up onto the couch, knee propping up the arm holding her glass. Her expression seemed to be one of genuine curiosity.
Chris didn't know. The stars had been the most lasting romance of his life. He'd stayed with ships longer than he'd stayed with any lover.
He was sure he would ache if and when Leonard ever decided the gaps between them---age, career plans, attitude---could no longer be bridged. But he knew he'd be able to go on, just as he had after every other break-up in his life.
But it would be a long while before he wanted to.
"I think we just weren't meant to be." Chris tilted his head and considered the woman before him. All he knew of her, and what he didn't want to remember about himself. "But I wish we ended better---I wish we ended friends."
"Me too." Brynn swished the ice in her glass. Stared at it as she spoke. "But that's not the way it went."
"No." Chris ran a hand through his hair. "Back then, you said 'sorry' wouldn't change anything. But I am sorry. And I know that I will never, ever make those kinds of mistakes with anyone else ever again. Because losing you from my life changed it, changed me."
He sighed. "Probably doesn't make a bit of difference...but I wanted you to know."
Brynn stared at him for a long, long moment. Then she offered her small smile. "You know what? I think it does."
Chris knew they might never be as close as they once were, but it was a place to start.
***************
***************
That evening...
Leonard warily stepped from the shuttle. He knew danger when he saw it. "What's happened?"
Selena lifted a finely plucked eyebrow. "What makes you think something's happened?"
"I'm not in the habit of bein' greeted by Security---at least not when I'm *by myself*." There'd been a few times he'd been dragged into Jim's scrapes, but that hadn't happened in a while, either.
"Do I look like I'm on duty?" Selena asked with a "use your eyes, stupid" gesture at her ensemble.
Leonard had to admit that thigh-high leather boots, skin-tight leggings, and a slinky crimson shirt topped with a black topcoat were not exactly regulation. "Uh, no."
Selena hmphed and elbowed past him to grab his bags from the cart alongside the shuttle berth.
"Hey---careful with that one!" Leonard snatched back one case, cradling it protectively. He *thought* he'd packed everything carefully, but it wouldn't do to smash Chris's gift now that he actually had a chance to give it to the man.
"Oooh, presents?" Selena leaned in, ripe lips ghosting a breath past his ear. "Naughty, kinky presents?"
Leonard rolled his eyes and started out of the hangar. "*No*. How long've you been married, again?"
"Not nearly long enough," Selena retorted as she fell into step. "Like it or not, Len, you were made for wicked things."
Leonard jumped at the firm pinch to one buttock. Could feel the flush starting in his cheeks and spreading up and down, painting his face bright red. "You're a goddamned menace, woman."
Selena only laughed and linked an arm with his. Two fairly heavy bags swung nonchalantly from her other shoulder.
He slowed, looking down at her. "Seriously, everything's OK?"
She stopped, brown eyes softening. "Yes, everything---and everyone---is OK. I'm just here to make sure you're delivered safely."
Leonard grunted and started up again, not totally convinced. "How was your Solstice party?"
"A complete success, of course." Selena giggled. "Barnett got totally blasted and started improvising dirty limericks about the Academy brass."
"Sorry I missed it." A surprising truth. No surprise at all that he'd missed Chris. "Uh, my room's that way." He pointed out the obvious.
"And Chris is wearing holes in the carpet this way." Selena tugged Leonard toward the professors' building, her grip as surprisingly strong as always. He could probably break it, but Leonard wasn't all that sure he wouldn't sprain something of his own in the process.
"So why didn't he come meet me himself?" Leonard tried not to pout. After all, he wasn't some starry-eyed git about to throw himself into his lover's arms in front of the entire campus.
"Couldn't get away." Selena tugged Leonard along, waving off his other questions like a woman on a mission.
The walk through the slight chill of evening helped Leonard get used to being on solid ground again. All those weeks in the artificial gravity had left his legs a mite unsteady.
Selena slowed as they reached Chris's door. She positioned Leonard squarely under the scanner and pushed the button to activate it.
The all clear sounded and the door slid open.
Next thing Leonard knew he was flying through the doorway, his bag plucked from his grip along the way.
Just as well as he stumbled into another body. "Shit!"
"Watch your mouth, boy." Lamont's twinkling eyes startled Leonard upright.
His hands automatically checked for damage to his victim. Took him a moment to regain control of his jaw. "Lamont? What're you doin' here?"
Leonard hadn't seen his father's old friend since the day Lamont enlisted Leonard into Starfleet to keep him out of jail.
Lamont batted Leonard's hands away and pulled him into a quick hug. "Spreadin' some holiday cheer, of course."
The lights in Chris's quarters got a little blurry until Leonard firmly blinked and set aside the rush of nostalgia. "How---?"
"Let's just say your beau can be a most persuasive fellow. Perhaps you might like to extend to him a holiday greeting?" The older man's cane pointed directly to where Chris was leaning near the entryway to the kitchen.
A smile hovered on Chris's lips, but there was a clear question in his eyes. Leonard could understand it. He had shared some of his personal history with Chris, but that didn't guarantee that a ghost of holidays past would be a welcome visitor.
He strolled over and paused a breath away. "Just what've you been up to?"
"Well, you missed Phyll and Selena's big bash, so I thought you might enjoy a small get-together to welcome you home." Chris lifted a hand to Leonard's face. "Welcome home."
After a breath, Leonard took a quick glance around. Picked out Phyll, Jim, Selena, and a few other folks he'd gotten friendly with over the years. He tilted his head toward Lamont. "And him?"
"Oh, he brought you a Solstice present." The glint in Chris's eyes matched his sly grin. "Nothing like your first one, though."
Leonard snorted. "Damned well better not be."
"Come here, Leonard, don't keep an old man waitin' on you." Lamont had relocated to Chris's desk, where two large storage containers now rested.
Leonard stepped over, throwing Chris a questioning glance. It was met with a slight shrug and another small smile.
When he reached the desk, Lamont patted him on the shoulder. "Now listen. I have a message from all your kith and kin: Folks couldn't shift their schedules, but you're bein' duly warned: No more playin' the black sheep. There will be comms, and visits---and you are forthwith expected to remember birthdays and send appropriate words of felicitation. I have a list."
Leonard cleared his throat. He'd ignored all contacts from old friends and even what was left of his family. First too grief-stricken, then too ashamed. Hiding out had become a habit. "OK."
His fingers trembled a little as he opened the lid on the first container. Breath caught in wonder as one of Joanna's baby pictures smiled up at him.
In a daze, he sifted through the contents: Images of Joanna, him, and Joss; his parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, friends...and copies of all those old-time photos and family histories that he'd inherited at his father's death and handed off to the family historian.
His great-unto generations-grandfather's antique microscope. Leather-bound books that he thought never to see again. His boyhood treasure chest. A quilt woven by his Gran. His mother's recipe box and his father's stack of real-paper cookbooks.
"I---I don't---" Leonard shook his head, ducked to swipe a sleeve at damp eyes. "How'd this all get here?"
Lamont's expression softened. "Jocelyn kept them safe for you. Even as mad as she was, she recognized that she had no right to things that were never hers and that you had a share in things that were yours together. Your fine friend set himself to makin' her see that it was time to let them come back to you."
Leonard swallowed. He'd never let himself dwell on how empty his quarters---his life---had been.
But he was damned grateful for how full it was now.
"C'mon Bones, what's in the other box?" Jim's index fingers played a drum solo on the unopened container.
Lamont supplied the answer with a shrug. "Clothes and other odds and ends. Your time would be better spent, boy, fetching me another glass of that fine bourbon." A prod of his cane in Jim's back emphasized the order as the two made for the bottles.
Chris strolled up with two of said bourbons, handing one off to Leonard. "You need some time alone, or you wanna join the party?"
Leonard accepted the drink and clinked his glass with Chris's. "*We* need some time alone. But that can wait---for the moment."
With a glance, Leonard found Selena holding his case and gestured her over as he set down his glass. She handed off the bag with an elaborate flourish that got her an eye-roll and a shove toward her chuckling wife.
Leonard set the case on top of the desk chair. He opened it and rummaged around, knowing each carefully swathed package by weight and feel. His fingers closed around one in particular. "Here we are."
He turned, took Chris's glass, and placed the package in Chris's hands. "For you."
Chris's delighted smile came before he even attempted to open it. With care, long fingers unfastened the seal, then unwound the layers of protective coverings.
"Oh." The word came out in a soft breath as Chris's eyes came up to meet Leonard's. "You made this, didn't you?"
At the center was a standard holo-display. But it was encased in a wooden frame, carved with shapes that were the echoes of stars and starships, desert flowers and vines, merging and separating in an endless loop. Sanded to a satin feel, polished and gleaming.
"I, uh, had some help with the pictures." Leonard shifted to stand beside Chris and switched it on. Images of the two of them, alone, together, and with their various friends cycled through. Most of the shots he'd gotten from Phyll, others he'd surreptitiously copied from Chris's own collection. A few they'd taken of each other over the months, catching unguarded moments.
"Thank you." Chris's voice had that soft, deep timbre that always set off a burst of warmth in Leonard's chest. Chris's fingers stroked his jaw as he leaned in for a kiss.
That first kiss was soft and sweet. The second one after Chris put down his gift was something else entirely. Leonard---and it seemed Chris---remembered that they'd spent far too long apart.
He growled a little when Chris finally pushed him back. Then shook his head and remembered his guests.
But first Leonard leaned in to whisper in Chris's ear, "Got another present for you---later."
NEXT
Author: Jaye (Copyright May 2013)
Codes: ST:XI Pike/McCoy, NC-17
Summary: Scenes from two lives coming together.
See PART 1 for disclaimer, author's notes, and guest cast.
Previous chapters: HERE
***************
CHAPTER 8
A few days after New Year's...
Chris had no warning. He was passing the door when he heard the chime and waved it open.
Brynn stood there.
He blinked, struck dumb for the moment.
She had changed little in the passing years. Age was sharpening rather than softening the angles of jaw and cheekbone. Her hair was the same carefully tamed wave of brown, her eyes a wary blue. "Hello, Chris."
"Brynn." Chris stepped back. "Uh, come on in."
Chris noted that Brynn's gold command tunic still held her commander's stripes. "You set for tomorrow?"
"I think so." Stern lips quirked in the hint of a smile as Brynn glanced at him over her shoulder. "I hope so."
He waved Brynn to the couch and headed to the square of counter he used as a makeshift bar. It took only a moment to find Brynn's favorite brand of gin.
His lifted brows were answered with a nod as Brynn settled on the couch. He quickly crafted a gin and tonic, adding ice from the freezer unit and a twist of lime. He skipped the gin in his own.
Brynn leaned forward to accept the glass, cool fingers brushing his. "Abstaining?"
"For the moment. Actually, I'm hoping to celebrate a reunion later." Chris settled into a chair.
Brynn hummed an acknowledgement as she swallowed. "Leonard, right?"
"Yes." He let the silence hold for a beat. "How about you?"
"Well, I'm not abstaining." Brynn lifted one shoulder. "But there's no one in particular at the moment."
Ironic, the awkward silence that fell. Chris could remember evenings on the Fortitude, playing Go and discussing politics with Brynn until the next shift rolled around.
That was before Talos IV.
Chris set aside his glass and leaned forward, his elbows braced on his thighs. "How are you, Brynn?"
"I'm OK." That small smile again. "Chris, it wasn't the end of the world."
He huffed a laugh. "I never claimed I was the be-all and end-all of anybody's existence---least of all yours."
"Well, I know I wasn't yours. Y'think that was part of the problem?" Brynn drew one leg up onto the couch, knee propping up the arm holding her glass. Her expression seemed to be one of genuine curiosity.
Chris didn't know. The stars had been the most lasting romance of his life. He'd stayed with ships longer than he'd stayed with any lover.
He was sure he would ache if and when Leonard ever decided the gaps between them---age, career plans, attitude---could no longer be bridged. But he knew he'd be able to go on, just as he had after every other break-up in his life.
But it would be a long while before he wanted to.
"I think we just weren't meant to be." Chris tilted his head and considered the woman before him. All he knew of her, and what he didn't want to remember about himself. "But I wish we ended better---I wish we ended friends."
"Me too." Brynn swished the ice in her glass. Stared at it as she spoke. "But that's not the way it went."
"No." Chris ran a hand through his hair. "Back then, you said 'sorry' wouldn't change anything. But I am sorry. And I know that I will never, ever make those kinds of mistakes with anyone else ever again. Because losing you from my life changed it, changed me."
He sighed. "Probably doesn't make a bit of difference...but I wanted you to know."
Brynn stared at him for a long, long moment. Then she offered her small smile. "You know what? I think it does."
Chris knew they might never be as close as they once were, but it was a place to start.
***************
***************
That evening...
Leonard warily stepped from the shuttle. He knew danger when he saw it. "What's happened?"
Selena lifted a finely plucked eyebrow. "What makes you think something's happened?"
"I'm not in the habit of bein' greeted by Security---at least not when I'm *by myself*." There'd been a few times he'd been dragged into Jim's scrapes, but that hadn't happened in a while, either.
"Do I look like I'm on duty?" Selena asked with a "use your eyes, stupid" gesture at her ensemble.
Leonard had to admit that thigh-high leather boots, skin-tight leggings, and a slinky crimson shirt topped with a black topcoat were not exactly regulation. "Uh, no."
Selena hmphed and elbowed past him to grab his bags from the cart alongside the shuttle berth.
"Hey---careful with that one!" Leonard snatched back one case, cradling it protectively. He *thought* he'd packed everything carefully, but it wouldn't do to smash Chris's gift now that he actually had a chance to give it to the man.
"Oooh, presents?" Selena leaned in, ripe lips ghosting a breath past his ear. "Naughty, kinky presents?"
Leonard rolled his eyes and started out of the hangar. "*No*. How long've you been married, again?"
"Not nearly long enough," Selena retorted as she fell into step. "Like it or not, Len, you were made for wicked things."
Leonard jumped at the firm pinch to one buttock. Could feel the flush starting in his cheeks and spreading up and down, painting his face bright red. "You're a goddamned menace, woman."
Selena only laughed and linked an arm with his. Two fairly heavy bags swung nonchalantly from her other shoulder.
He slowed, looking down at her. "Seriously, everything's OK?"
She stopped, brown eyes softening. "Yes, everything---and everyone---is OK. I'm just here to make sure you're delivered safely."
Leonard grunted and started up again, not totally convinced. "How was your Solstice party?"
"A complete success, of course." Selena giggled. "Barnett got totally blasted and started improvising dirty limericks about the Academy brass."
"Sorry I missed it." A surprising truth. No surprise at all that he'd missed Chris. "Uh, my room's that way." He pointed out the obvious.
"And Chris is wearing holes in the carpet this way." Selena tugged Leonard toward the professors' building, her grip as surprisingly strong as always. He could probably break it, but Leonard wasn't all that sure he wouldn't sprain something of his own in the process.
"So why didn't he come meet me himself?" Leonard tried not to pout. After all, he wasn't some starry-eyed git about to throw himself into his lover's arms in front of the entire campus.
"Couldn't get away." Selena tugged Leonard along, waving off his other questions like a woman on a mission.
The walk through the slight chill of evening helped Leonard get used to being on solid ground again. All those weeks in the artificial gravity had left his legs a mite unsteady.
Selena slowed as they reached Chris's door. She positioned Leonard squarely under the scanner and pushed the button to activate it.
The all clear sounded and the door slid open.
Next thing Leonard knew he was flying through the doorway, his bag plucked from his grip along the way.
Just as well as he stumbled into another body. "Shit!"
"Watch your mouth, boy." Lamont's twinkling eyes startled Leonard upright.
His hands automatically checked for damage to his victim. Took him a moment to regain control of his jaw. "Lamont? What're you doin' here?"
Leonard hadn't seen his father's old friend since the day Lamont enlisted Leonard into Starfleet to keep him out of jail.
Lamont batted Leonard's hands away and pulled him into a quick hug. "Spreadin' some holiday cheer, of course."
The lights in Chris's quarters got a little blurry until Leonard firmly blinked and set aside the rush of nostalgia. "How---?"
"Let's just say your beau can be a most persuasive fellow. Perhaps you might like to extend to him a holiday greeting?" The older man's cane pointed directly to where Chris was leaning near the entryway to the kitchen.
A smile hovered on Chris's lips, but there was a clear question in his eyes. Leonard could understand it. He had shared some of his personal history with Chris, but that didn't guarantee that a ghost of holidays past would be a welcome visitor.
He strolled over and paused a breath away. "Just what've you been up to?"
"Well, you missed Phyll and Selena's big bash, so I thought you might enjoy a small get-together to welcome you home." Chris lifted a hand to Leonard's face. "Welcome home."
After a breath, Leonard took a quick glance around. Picked out Phyll, Jim, Selena, and a few other folks he'd gotten friendly with over the years. He tilted his head toward Lamont. "And him?"
"Oh, he brought you a Solstice present." The glint in Chris's eyes matched his sly grin. "Nothing like your first one, though."
Leonard snorted. "Damned well better not be."
"Come here, Leonard, don't keep an old man waitin' on you." Lamont had relocated to Chris's desk, where two large storage containers now rested.
Leonard stepped over, throwing Chris a questioning glance. It was met with a slight shrug and another small smile.
When he reached the desk, Lamont patted him on the shoulder. "Now listen. I have a message from all your kith and kin: Folks couldn't shift their schedules, but you're bein' duly warned: No more playin' the black sheep. There will be comms, and visits---and you are forthwith expected to remember birthdays and send appropriate words of felicitation. I have a list."
Leonard cleared his throat. He'd ignored all contacts from old friends and even what was left of his family. First too grief-stricken, then too ashamed. Hiding out had become a habit. "OK."
His fingers trembled a little as he opened the lid on the first container. Breath caught in wonder as one of Joanna's baby pictures smiled up at him.
In a daze, he sifted through the contents: Images of Joanna, him, and Joss; his parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, friends...and copies of all those old-time photos and family histories that he'd inherited at his father's death and handed off to the family historian.
His great-unto generations-grandfather's antique microscope. Leather-bound books that he thought never to see again. His boyhood treasure chest. A quilt woven by his Gran. His mother's recipe box and his father's stack of real-paper cookbooks.
"I---I don't---" Leonard shook his head, ducked to swipe a sleeve at damp eyes. "How'd this all get here?"
Lamont's expression softened. "Jocelyn kept them safe for you. Even as mad as she was, she recognized that she had no right to things that were never hers and that you had a share in things that were yours together. Your fine friend set himself to makin' her see that it was time to let them come back to you."
Leonard swallowed. He'd never let himself dwell on how empty his quarters---his life---had been.
But he was damned grateful for how full it was now.
"C'mon Bones, what's in the other box?" Jim's index fingers played a drum solo on the unopened container.
Lamont supplied the answer with a shrug. "Clothes and other odds and ends. Your time would be better spent, boy, fetching me another glass of that fine bourbon." A prod of his cane in Jim's back emphasized the order as the two made for the bottles.
Chris strolled up with two of said bourbons, handing one off to Leonard. "You need some time alone, or you wanna join the party?"
Leonard accepted the drink and clinked his glass with Chris's. "*We* need some time alone. But that can wait---for the moment."
With a glance, Leonard found Selena holding his case and gestured her over as he set down his glass. She handed off the bag with an elaborate flourish that got her an eye-roll and a shove toward her chuckling wife.
Leonard set the case on top of the desk chair. He opened it and rummaged around, knowing each carefully swathed package by weight and feel. His fingers closed around one in particular. "Here we are."
He turned, took Chris's glass, and placed the package in Chris's hands. "For you."
Chris's delighted smile came before he even attempted to open it. With care, long fingers unfastened the seal, then unwound the layers of protective coverings.
"Oh." The word came out in a soft breath as Chris's eyes came up to meet Leonard's. "You made this, didn't you?"
At the center was a standard holo-display. But it was encased in a wooden frame, carved with shapes that were the echoes of stars and starships, desert flowers and vines, merging and separating in an endless loop. Sanded to a satin feel, polished and gleaming.
"I, uh, had some help with the pictures." Leonard shifted to stand beside Chris and switched it on. Images of the two of them, alone, together, and with their various friends cycled through. Most of the shots he'd gotten from Phyll, others he'd surreptitiously copied from Chris's own collection. A few they'd taken of each other over the months, catching unguarded moments.
"Thank you." Chris's voice had that soft, deep timbre that always set off a burst of warmth in Leonard's chest. Chris's fingers stroked his jaw as he leaned in for a kiss.
That first kiss was soft and sweet. The second one after Chris put down his gift was something else entirely. Leonard---and it seemed Chris---remembered that they'd spent far too long apart.
He growled a little when Chris finally pushed him back. Then shook his head and remembered his guests.
But first Leonard leaned in to whisper in Chris's ear, "Got another present for you---later."
NEXT