Fic: Reaper of Bones
Aug. 16th, 2009 10:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miss_m_cricketTitle: Reaper of Bones
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
miss_m_cricket
Fandom: Star Trek Reboot! / Doom Crossover.
Rating: R for language and goriness
Pairing: will be Reaper!McCoy/James T. Kirk
Disclaimer: Own neither Doom, nor Star Trek. (Nor Abstergo Industries or the Animus)
Summary: Starfleet has ordered the Enterprise to Mars to reactivate the Olduvai facility and Bones is once again forced to face his demons...
A/N: Information about Abstergo Industries, and the Animus are from the Game Assassins Creed. The thing was that Everything slotted together really well, UAC, Abstergo, the Eugenics Wars, WWIII and the lack of information about that time in Earths History.
A/N 2: Sources differ about 'Sarge's name some say its Tom Kelley, but the novelisation says it is Asher Mahonin, and that sounds way cooler.
AN 3: Italics in this chapter are all Mine. Except for the flashback scene of his parents dying. There I got most of the words from the movie. but all the actions as mine as Reaper only heard the memory there.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
Reaper of Bones
Excerpt from the Introduction of “Earth: Rise of the Corporation” a detailed report into the state of the Planet Earth after the effects of the Eugenics War.
...After the chief dictators had been stripped from power, or killed in the final fighting around the entire globe, there was a lack of any kind of government body to take any kind of control. In this unstable atmosphere two main Organisations came to power, ushering in a new era in Earth’s history.
The United Aerospace Corporation or UAC was the more military minded of the two main organisations, publicly providing remarkable scientific breakthroughs in the fields of weaponry and teleportation. Unknown to the public however they still conducted heavy experimentation into forensic Archaeology and Genetics.
In the year 2026 UAC archaeologists working in the Nevada desert discovered a portal to an ancient city on Mars, another planet in the Earth system. They called this portal the Ark. Claiming control of this new discovery the UAC Research Facility in Olduvai soon became the location of some of UAC’s most dangerous and covert work.
The other organisation was Abstergo Industries, heavily involved in medical research and genetics as well as more commercial technologies. Rather more secretive an Organisation than UAC, Abstergo was none the less just as powerful and just as dangerous...
Excerpt from the Chapter titled, “Abstergo Industries and Genetic Memory,” from “Earth: Rise of the Corporation” a detailed report into the state of the Planet Earth after the effects of the Eugenics Wars.
...Like its rival UAC, Abstergo Industries also dabbled in the field of genetics; something publically frowned upon since the horrors of the Eugenics War. Unlike UAC however Abstergo concentrated, not on the manipulating of genes to create, but rather the knowledge that the genes contained, specifically Genetic Memory.
The concept of Genetic Memory is that the memories of one's ancestors are genetically passed on to subsequent generations through the 20% of the unmapped human genome. This storehouse of memory proved to be invaluable to Abstergo, as they hunted through the world for descendents of important figures from history.
To decode the genetic markers in the unmapped 20% Abstergo created a machine they named the Animus. A subject inside the Animus would relieve the memories of their ancestor, touching, feeling and tasting everything that their ancestor did. However de-synchronizing with the Ancestor’s memories i.e. doing things the Ancestor never had, often caused great trauma to the subject and increased exposure to being inside the Animus for long periods tended to lead to insanity and often death, known as the Bleeding Out effect...
~*~
Bones looked up from the PADD he held, meeting the gaze of Dr Young who waited patiently nearby. Jim too waited nearby with Spock, giving the two Doctors some space with which to discuss the genetics research Dr Young wanted performed.
“Genetic memory.” Bones sighed, tapping a finger against the edge of the PADD, “Continuing on from Abstergo Industries are we? Goddammit Doctor, you saw what that research led to. A mass global conflict, a nuclear disaster which almost wiped the entire human race out, a conflict which was just a cover up for Abstergo and UAC fighting for power.”
“We know so little from that time Dr McCoy,” Young said, moving closer to his bedside. His bindings had been removed once Young had been sure that he would not tear all of them apart. “So much was lost, and we know so little about UAC and Abstergo and what they uncovered. We know little about what really went on, and you are the only link into that. Reaper is the only link into that.”
“Some things should stay buried.” Reaper growled, one of his hands curling into a fist, “Something UAC didn’t realise, when they fucking released hell onto Mars and then almost onto Earth. They wanted a weapon, a legion of perfect genetic super-soldiers to wipe out Abstergo and anyone else who posed a threat to them. What they got was more than what they bargained for. Are you doing the same?”
“We do not want a legion of super-soldiers.” Doctor Young reassured him looking at him coolly, “Nor do we intend to extract and replicate the 24th Chromosome you and Captain Kirk carry. If that was what we wanted then we would have simply taken it. No Mr Grimm, we want your memories.”
Reaper leaned back, hazel green eyes flickering over her face slowly. He considered it, rolling around the information she had given him both verbally and on the PADD until they slotted into an order that made sense.
“You have Abstergo’s Animus.” He murmured, voice a low dangerous rumble, “You have a piece of technology that almost ruined the planet. God fucking dammit!” He roared and saw Spock and Jim’s heads come up with alarm. “Are you nuts?!”
“Mr Grimm,” Dr Young tried to pacify him, but he would have none of it, interrupting her before she got any further.
“I am Dr McCoy. And as Doctor McCoy I know the damage that that machine can wreak on humans, damaging their brains and causing their minds to bleed from the inside out!”
“We have modified the Animus Doctor.” Young reassured him, “We did not test it until we were absolutely certain it was corrected. There were still some side effects but no one was injured, no one innocent harmed.”
“What about the poor schmuck you tested it on. Did they live?” he sneered, slowly sitting up. Dr Young blinked back at him slowly and nodded.
“Yes, she lived. And she very much would like to reassure you Dr McCoy that unlike most normal humans, whose cells are much more prone to damage, you would be unaffected by the Bleeding Out phenomena.”
He groaned rubbing his head and shaking it slightly. “You tested it on yourself.” He rumbled softly, “Goddammit Doctor.”
“It was necessary.” Doctor Young said simply, “And now I ask you again, Dr McCoy. We need to conduct this research, will you allow it?”
Bones was silent for a long time, looking down at his hands before finally looking up, “What will I have to do?”
~*~
The explanation she gave him on the way to the lab which contained the Animus was a long one, and a technically complex one. However thanks to his years of studying science, as well as his natural and enhanced intelligence he was able to keep up. There had been many modifications made to the machine since Abstergo had used it; primarily that there would be blocks in place to stop mental backlash from de-synchronisation.
He almost called off the whole thing when she finally admitted the reason that Jim was there with them. “You share the C-24.” She had said with hesitation, “And he is the closest to you in terms of species and also mental fondness. His consciousness will be bound up in yours and we will see things through your combined eyes through him. We cannot witness your memories through you Dr McCoy; it would be too traumatic for you. You will witness them, but Jim will have control, stopping you from harming yourself by trying to break the parameters.”
Spock ventured that the Doctor’s summation was logical and Jim agreed, having apparently forgiven the Vulcan First Officer’s report exposing them to Starfleet. Reaper sent the pair of them a nasty glare, his forgiveness was not going to come so quickly, and stalked off after Dr Young, grumbling angrily under his breath.
A few hours later and he was lying on the bed of the machine, Jim beside him, technicians working on the final preparations to send both him and Jim back into the past, into his own memories. Far out.
He looked over at the younger man, seeing the familiar blue eyes watching him with concern. “Bones,” Jim said softly, hand reaching out over the small distance between them. His fingers touched Leonard’s and Bones felt his heart beating in his throat.
They were alone, the only still figures in the curve of the machine with others hurrying about outside their attention. Here Bones wouldn’t be able to hide, wouldn’t be able to shield Jim from anything about himself. Jim would see everything Bones was, everything that had made him the Leonard McCoy he had met day one on the Shuttle.
“Jim...” he said, voice cracking, and then everything went black.
~*~
Reddish sunlight gleamed around him, filtered by the field that protected this section of Olduvai from the unbreathable atmosphere of Mars. He was running, playing, racing around bends in the archaeological dig in which his parents worked.
“Nah, nah!” a young girl’s voice chanted, echoing around the bends of the Dig, making him grin.
“You’re supposed to stay near here!” he called back, his voice the voice of the young six year old he had been. “Sam!”
“I’m coming.” She called, all fond exasperation in her voice, “Hey mom, come here and see.”
His mother’s laughter coming from somewhere nearby made his chest hurt, but he heard his own voice laugh and Sam’s too.
“Come on!” she came around the bend, reaching out and grabbing his hand. They ran off, out onto the slopes of the dig, climbing while their parents watched fondly.
“Careful now.” His mother called.
“Not too close John.” His father too added his caution. John and Sam raced along the guiding steps, playful and giggling until they came to the rocks. Instantly Sam was up and climbing but John hesitated.
“No Sam, don’t risk it!” he called up to her, reaching up to pull her back.
“Sam!” his mother called and he could hear her running towards them. He turned in time to see a power cable come loose from the cliff, jarring the entire mountainside. A huge avalanche tumbled down and his mother was swept away, screaming.
“No! Mummy!” he was yelling, and then his father, trying to get to his mother was gone too and it was just him and Sam crouched in the entrance up into the tunnels, screaming their distress...
~*~
“Don’t say anything kid.”
“I wasn’t going to.” Jim’s voice murmured in his mind, and he felt something that was almost like a mental hug, “I am sorry though.”
“Yeah not as sorry as me.”
~*~
“You can’t do that!”
He was walking away, stalking down a hallway into a small neat bedroom, clean enough but with nothing to signify it as a home. On the bed was a big duffle bag, and in it he finished stuffing his books, books on science and theology and genetics as well as classic novels.
She followed him in; he had expected that. Sam wasn’t someone who would give up a fight that easily, especially not over something she felt so passionately about. “Don’t you walk away from me John, we haven’t finished discussing this!”
“Yeah,” he said, turning to look at her before moving across the room to pick up a faded paperback, “We have.”
“The hell we have! You are too talented a student to go waste it being a jarhead in RRTS!” She reached out and grabbed his arm, “Mom and Dad wouldn’t have wanted...”
“Well they aren’t here are they.” He spat back at her, yanking his arm away from her grip, “So I don’t know what ‘They’ would have wanted of me.”
“John!” she gasped, glaring at him, “They were forensic archaeologists! You think they would have wanted their son to go off and be some order following, gun toting, mercenary! You can be so much better than that, why can’t you see that?”
“I don’t want anything more than that.” He hissed back at her, “I’ve made up my mind Samantha, I’m signed up, and they accepted me. I’m gunna be a medic in a Rapid Response Tactical Squad, and there is fuck all you can do about it. Got it?”
He left her standing there in the bedroom their foster parents had given him and he didn’t look back, too proud to say sorry, and too angry to stop.
~*~
“You would have liked her.”
“Yeah I think I would have.”
~*~
He pushed himself over the last bar with a final heave and landed hard on the hard packed ground on the other side.
Boot camp, day number what-ever-the-fuck it was. He was exhausted, but even through that he still had a current of electric interest running through him. He had always liked to push himself, and it seemed that physical skills were no different.
He lay there for a few moments getting his breath back, wheezing insults at himself the entire time.
“Grimm! What the fuck are you doing? Stop lying there like a starfish and get your lazy arse over this line! NOW Soldier!”
The young drill Sergeant had a voice like a foghorn and it burnt John’s ear hairs every time that he opened his mouth to roar across at some hapless recruit, in this case him. But it also had the desired effect of strengthening John’s muscles and sending him up onto his feet once more and staggering across the line, to bend over gasping for breath.
“Fuck me.” He wheezed.
“Only if you ask nicely.” A voice chirped at his side.
John turned, an eyebrow raised to look at the man, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Rangy, with flaming red hair and a pair of lively blue eyes and with a grin that could power a small city. Unusual to see someone so happy, especially with the Third World War raging around the globe. The young man stuck out his hand, grin gleaming.
“Name’s Finnegan, my last name anyway, seeing as that’s all their calling us by. You’re Grimm right?” John nodded, eyebrow rising a little more at the cheerful talk, “Yeah seen you around, you’re pretty decent at all this stuff. Were you a cadet in school or something?”
“No.”
“Oh well, still you are good, hey wanna grab some lunch after this dickwad finishes with us?”
“Uh...”
“Great!” Finnegan didn’t even let him finish before he enthused on about what he had heard was up for offer in the cafeteria that day. Bemused, John followed him, unable to resist such a vibrant personality, and unable to resist not being alone any more.
He turned once to look back at the training course, and caught the dark gaze of the young drill Sergeant watching him. The man was tall and built with coffee coloured skin and a strong jaw.
The man nodded once and turned away, and John too turned and wandered off to the cafeteria following the happily burbling redhead, and thought nothing more about it.
~*~
”That was Sarge?”
“Yeah that was him...”
“And...Jumper?”
“Yeah...”
~*~
She couldn’t have picked a worse time to visit him.
He had just come back from a mission, a horrible bloodbath of men being blown apart, a bloodbath he had managed to escape from, unlike so many others. But he hadn’t escaped unscathed, and he had a duty to attend everyone else before he looked after his own wounds. So when she entered the infirmary at the base it was to find him, grubby and bloody with a gash down his forehead and blood all over his hands.
Her mouth thinned.
He ignored her, finishing patching up a dizzy Corporal before turning to face her, his expression calm and unruffled. Yeah his job was dangerous, but it also made him feel alive, like he was achieving something, accomplishing something. Patching up these men, men who he served with and cared about, it made him feel worth something.
She would never understand that.
“Hello Samantha.”
“John.”
He moved away from her, over to one of the stainless steel washbasins where he washed the sticky crimson blood away, “What can I do for you? Or is this a social call?”
“I was just coming to tell you goodbye.” She said tightly, mouth compressed and her dark eyes, so like his own, flashing with exasperation and anger.
“Going somewhere?” he said, casually, ignoring the lurch in his gut. Sure they hadn’t spoken in the year since he had left, apart from the birthday card they always exchanged, but he had always liked knowing his sister was nearby and safe. With the War raging, her safety had become of vital importance.
“Yes.” She said, and a small vindictive smile curled up her lips. “Mars.”
The basin clanged as he whipped around. “What?” he hissed, feeling black anger and horror sweep through him, “Mars?”
“Yes, the UAC Research facility on Olduvai.”
He snarled and in a few strides was across the room and gripping her shoulders in his hands, shaking her once and then twice.
“Olduvai!” he growled, “UAC and Olduvai killed Mom and Dad and you are going there, WHY?” he roared, “Is this some kind of joke, some kind of payback, because it’s not funny Sam, it’s not!”
She yanked out of his hold and smacked her arm against his chest, glaring at him, “This is no joke. They offered me a position as a Forensic Archaeologist; I will have a good wage, a home in Olduvai. And I will be continuing my parents work instead of turning my back on them.”
“God fucking dammit!” He wrenched himself away from her, running his fingers through his thick dark hair.
“I leave tomorrow.”
“Don’t go Sam.” He said voice softer now, but he didn’t look around. Instead he concentrated on the Infirmary wall and the poster there of an artistically knotted tree. “Don’t go.”
There was silence from behind him and then her footsteps clicked across the floor, away from him, towards the door. “I’ll see you around, Corporal Grimm.” She said coolly, and then she was gone.
~*~
That night he got extraordinarily drunk.
But the thing he remembered most about that night was not his feelings of hurt and anger and betrayal that his sister had stirred in him. What he remembered was his drinking partner, someone he hadn’t seen in a year.
“Mahonin.” The man introduced himself, voice rumbling in his big barrel like chest, “Asher Mahonin. Grimm right? I remember you from the Boot Camp last year.”
“Yeah that’s me.” John slurred faintly, blinking at the other man, recognising the coffee skin and strong jaw. “You ran that hellish obstacle course. Man I hated you.”
Mahonin grinned, a white grin gleaming against the dark skin, making his eyes crinkle at the corners, “That was me.” He agreed easily.
“What can I do for you then Sarge?” John propped his head up against his hand, feeling a little woozy but nothing he couldn’t handle. “I’m afraid that if you want me to run another Obstacle course, I am going to have to take a raincheck on it. Not going to be up for running anything tonight.”
A soft chuckle came from the man opposite him, “Not going to make you run anything, don’t worry.” He reassured the slighter man, “Just looking for someone to sit with, talk to.”
John smiled at him; dark eyes a little unfocused, “Well I’m bloody brilliant at that. Shoot.”
He didn’t remember much about the conversation the next morning, just that he had told ‘Sarge’ about his sister and the whole fucked up situation with them and their parents and Olduvai. He had listened when Sarge told him about his own experiences with his family, none of whom he spoke to any more.
He woke up with an appalling hangover and was grumpy the rest of the day.
But a few days later he was called into the Barracks admin office and there waiting for him was of the Assignment Officer and beside him was Mahonin.
“You are part of RRTS 6 now.” Mahonin told him, dark eyes shining, “My squad, Grimm.”
“If he is to be a full squad member he needs a code name.” The administrator sighed, clearly bored and wanting five o’clock to come quicker. Mahonin glared at him and then looked at Grimm who glared right back.
That made Mahonin smile. “Grimm.” He said, rolling the name in his mouth.
“Reaper.”
Author:
miss_m_cricketFandom: Star Trek Reboot! / Doom Crossover.
Rating: R for language and goriness
Pairing: will be Reaper!McCoy/James T. Kirk
Disclaimer: Own neither Doom, nor Star Trek. (Nor Abstergo Industries or the Animus)
Summary: Starfleet has ordered the Enterprise to Mars to reactivate the Olduvai facility and Bones is once again forced to face his demons...
A/N: Information about Abstergo Industries, and the Animus are from the Game Assassins Creed. The thing was that Everything slotted together really well, UAC, Abstergo, the Eugenics Wars, WWIII and the lack of information about that time in Earths History.
A/N 2: Sources differ about 'Sarge's name some say its Tom Kelley, but the novelisation says it is Asher Mahonin, and that sounds way cooler.
AN 3: Italics in this chapter are all Mine. Except for the flashback scene of his parents dying. There I got most of the words from the movie. but all the actions as mine as Reaper only heard the memory there.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
Reaper of Bones
Excerpt from the Introduction of “Earth: Rise of the Corporation” a detailed report into the state of the Planet Earth after the effects of the Eugenics War.
...After the chief dictators had been stripped from power, or killed in the final fighting around the entire globe, there was a lack of any kind of government body to take any kind of control. In this unstable atmosphere two main Organisations came to power, ushering in a new era in Earth’s history.
The United Aerospace Corporation or UAC was the more military minded of the two main organisations, publicly providing remarkable scientific breakthroughs in the fields of weaponry and teleportation. Unknown to the public however they still conducted heavy experimentation into forensic Archaeology and Genetics.
In the year 2026 UAC archaeologists working in the Nevada desert discovered a portal to an ancient city on Mars, another planet in the Earth system. They called this portal the Ark. Claiming control of this new discovery the UAC Research Facility in Olduvai soon became the location of some of UAC’s most dangerous and covert work.
The other organisation was Abstergo Industries, heavily involved in medical research and genetics as well as more commercial technologies. Rather more secretive an Organisation than UAC, Abstergo was none the less just as powerful and just as dangerous...
Excerpt from the Chapter titled, “Abstergo Industries and Genetic Memory,” from “Earth: Rise of the Corporation” a detailed report into the state of the Planet Earth after the effects of the Eugenics Wars.
...Like its rival UAC, Abstergo Industries also dabbled in the field of genetics; something publically frowned upon since the horrors of the Eugenics War. Unlike UAC however Abstergo concentrated, not on the manipulating of genes to create, but rather the knowledge that the genes contained, specifically Genetic Memory.
The concept of Genetic Memory is that the memories of one's ancestors are genetically passed on to subsequent generations through the 20% of the unmapped human genome. This storehouse of memory proved to be invaluable to Abstergo, as they hunted through the world for descendents of important figures from history.
To decode the genetic markers in the unmapped 20% Abstergo created a machine they named the Animus. A subject inside the Animus would relieve the memories of their ancestor, touching, feeling and tasting everything that their ancestor did. However de-synchronizing with the Ancestor’s memories i.e. doing things the Ancestor never had, often caused great trauma to the subject and increased exposure to being inside the Animus for long periods tended to lead to insanity and often death, known as the Bleeding Out effect...
~*~
Bones looked up from the PADD he held, meeting the gaze of Dr Young who waited patiently nearby. Jim too waited nearby with Spock, giving the two Doctors some space with which to discuss the genetics research Dr Young wanted performed.
“Genetic memory.” Bones sighed, tapping a finger against the edge of the PADD, “Continuing on from Abstergo Industries are we? Goddammit Doctor, you saw what that research led to. A mass global conflict, a nuclear disaster which almost wiped the entire human race out, a conflict which was just a cover up for Abstergo and UAC fighting for power.”
“We know so little from that time Dr McCoy,” Young said, moving closer to his bedside. His bindings had been removed once Young had been sure that he would not tear all of them apart. “So much was lost, and we know so little about UAC and Abstergo and what they uncovered. We know little about what really went on, and you are the only link into that. Reaper is the only link into that.”
“Some things should stay buried.” Reaper growled, one of his hands curling into a fist, “Something UAC didn’t realise, when they fucking released hell onto Mars and then almost onto Earth. They wanted a weapon, a legion of perfect genetic super-soldiers to wipe out Abstergo and anyone else who posed a threat to them. What they got was more than what they bargained for. Are you doing the same?”
“We do not want a legion of super-soldiers.” Doctor Young reassured him looking at him coolly, “Nor do we intend to extract and replicate the 24th Chromosome you and Captain Kirk carry. If that was what we wanted then we would have simply taken it. No Mr Grimm, we want your memories.”
Reaper leaned back, hazel green eyes flickering over her face slowly. He considered it, rolling around the information she had given him both verbally and on the PADD until they slotted into an order that made sense.
“You have Abstergo’s Animus.” He murmured, voice a low dangerous rumble, “You have a piece of technology that almost ruined the planet. God fucking dammit!” He roared and saw Spock and Jim’s heads come up with alarm. “Are you nuts?!”
“Mr Grimm,” Dr Young tried to pacify him, but he would have none of it, interrupting her before she got any further.
“I am Dr McCoy. And as Doctor McCoy I know the damage that that machine can wreak on humans, damaging their brains and causing their minds to bleed from the inside out!”
“We have modified the Animus Doctor.” Young reassured him, “We did not test it until we were absolutely certain it was corrected. There were still some side effects but no one was injured, no one innocent harmed.”
“What about the poor schmuck you tested it on. Did they live?” he sneered, slowly sitting up. Dr Young blinked back at him slowly and nodded.
“Yes, she lived. And she very much would like to reassure you Dr McCoy that unlike most normal humans, whose cells are much more prone to damage, you would be unaffected by the Bleeding Out phenomena.”
He groaned rubbing his head and shaking it slightly. “You tested it on yourself.” He rumbled softly, “Goddammit Doctor.”
“It was necessary.” Doctor Young said simply, “And now I ask you again, Dr McCoy. We need to conduct this research, will you allow it?”
Bones was silent for a long time, looking down at his hands before finally looking up, “What will I have to do?”
~*~
The explanation she gave him on the way to the lab which contained the Animus was a long one, and a technically complex one. However thanks to his years of studying science, as well as his natural and enhanced intelligence he was able to keep up. There had been many modifications made to the machine since Abstergo had used it; primarily that there would be blocks in place to stop mental backlash from de-synchronisation.
He almost called off the whole thing when she finally admitted the reason that Jim was there with them. “You share the C-24.” She had said with hesitation, “And he is the closest to you in terms of species and also mental fondness. His consciousness will be bound up in yours and we will see things through your combined eyes through him. We cannot witness your memories through you Dr McCoy; it would be too traumatic for you. You will witness them, but Jim will have control, stopping you from harming yourself by trying to break the parameters.”
Spock ventured that the Doctor’s summation was logical and Jim agreed, having apparently forgiven the Vulcan First Officer’s report exposing them to Starfleet. Reaper sent the pair of them a nasty glare, his forgiveness was not going to come so quickly, and stalked off after Dr Young, grumbling angrily under his breath.
A few hours later and he was lying on the bed of the machine, Jim beside him, technicians working on the final preparations to send both him and Jim back into the past, into his own memories. Far out.
He looked over at the younger man, seeing the familiar blue eyes watching him with concern. “Bones,” Jim said softly, hand reaching out over the small distance between them. His fingers touched Leonard’s and Bones felt his heart beating in his throat.
They were alone, the only still figures in the curve of the machine with others hurrying about outside their attention. Here Bones wouldn’t be able to hide, wouldn’t be able to shield Jim from anything about himself. Jim would see everything Bones was, everything that had made him the Leonard McCoy he had met day one on the Shuttle.
“Jim...” he said, voice cracking, and then everything went black.
~*~
Reddish sunlight gleamed around him, filtered by the field that protected this section of Olduvai from the unbreathable atmosphere of Mars. He was running, playing, racing around bends in the archaeological dig in which his parents worked.
“Nah, nah!” a young girl’s voice chanted, echoing around the bends of the Dig, making him grin.
“You’re supposed to stay near here!” he called back, his voice the voice of the young six year old he had been. “Sam!”
“I’m coming.” She called, all fond exasperation in her voice, “Hey mom, come here and see.”
His mother’s laughter coming from somewhere nearby made his chest hurt, but he heard his own voice laugh and Sam’s too.
“Come on!” she came around the bend, reaching out and grabbing his hand. They ran off, out onto the slopes of the dig, climbing while their parents watched fondly.
“Careful now.” His mother called.
“Not too close John.” His father too added his caution. John and Sam raced along the guiding steps, playful and giggling until they came to the rocks. Instantly Sam was up and climbing but John hesitated.
“No Sam, don’t risk it!” he called up to her, reaching up to pull her back.
“Sam!” his mother called and he could hear her running towards them. He turned in time to see a power cable come loose from the cliff, jarring the entire mountainside. A huge avalanche tumbled down and his mother was swept away, screaming.
“No! Mummy!” he was yelling, and then his father, trying to get to his mother was gone too and it was just him and Sam crouched in the entrance up into the tunnels, screaming their distress...
~*~
“Don’t say anything kid.”
“I wasn’t going to.” Jim’s voice murmured in his mind, and he felt something that was almost like a mental hug, “I am sorry though.”
“Yeah not as sorry as me.”
~*~
“You can’t do that!”
He was walking away, stalking down a hallway into a small neat bedroom, clean enough but with nothing to signify it as a home. On the bed was a big duffle bag, and in it he finished stuffing his books, books on science and theology and genetics as well as classic novels.
She followed him in; he had expected that. Sam wasn’t someone who would give up a fight that easily, especially not over something she felt so passionately about. “Don’t you walk away from me John, we haven’t finished discussing this!”
“Yeah,” he said, turning to look at her before moving across the room to pick up a faded paperback, “We have.”
“The hell we have! You are too talented a student to go waste it being a jarhead in RRTS!” She reached out and grabbed his arm, “Mom and Dad wouldn’t have wanted...”
“Well they aren’t here are they.” He spat back at her, yanking his arm away from her grip, “So I don’t know what ‘They’ would have wanted of me.”
“John!” she gasped, glaring at him, “They were forensic archaeologists! You think they would have wanted their son to go off and be some order following, gun toting, mercenary! You can be so much better than that, why can’t you see that?”
“I don’t want anything more than that.” He hissed back at her, “I’ve made up my mind Samantha, I’m signed up, and they accepted me. I’m gunna be a medic in a Rapid Response Tactical Squad, and there is fuck all you can do about it. Got it?”
He left her standing there in the bedroom their foster parents had given him and he didn’t look back, too proud to say sorry, and too angry to stop.
~*~
“You would have liked her.”
“Yeah I think I would have.”
~*~
He pushed himself over the last bar with a final heave and landed hard on the hard packed ground on the other side.
Boot camp, day number what-ever-the-fuck it was. He was exhausted, but even through that he still had a current of electric interest running through him. He had always liked to push himself, and it seemed that physical skills were no different.
He lay there for a few moments getting his breath back, wheezing insults at himself the entire time.
“Grimm! What the fuck are you doing? Stop lying there like a starfish and get your lazy arse over this line! NOW Soldier!”
The young drill Sergeant had a voice like a foghorn and it burnt John’s ear hairs every time that he opened his mouth to roar across at some hapless recruit, in this case him. But it also had the desired effect of strengthening John’s muscles and sending him up onto his feet once more and staggering across the line, to bend over gasping for breath.
“Fuck me.” He wheezed.
“Only if you ask nicely.” A voice chirped at his side.
John turned, an eyebrow raised to look at the man, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Rangy, with flaming red hair and a pair of lively blue eyes and with a grin that could power a small city. Unusual to see someone so happy, especially with the Third World War raging around the globe. The young man stuck out his hand, grin gleaming.
“Name’s Finnegan, my last name anyway, seeing as that’s all their calling us by. You’re Grimm right?” John nodded, eyebrow rising a little more at the cheerful talk, “Yeah seen you around, you’re pretty decent at all this stuff. Were you a cadet in school or something?”
“No.”
“Oh well, still you are good, hey wanna grab some lunch after this dickwad finishes with us?”
“Uh...”
“Great!” Finnegan didn’t even let him finish before he enthused on about what he had heard was up for offer in the cafeteria that day. Bemused, John followed him, unable to resist such a vibrant personality, and unable to resist not being alone any more.
He turned once to look back at the training course, and caught the dark gaze of the young drill Sergeant watching him. The man was tall and built with coffee coloured skin and a strong jaw.
The man nodded once and turned away, and John too turned and wandered off to the cafeteria following the happily burbling redhead, and thought nothing more about it.
~*~
”That was Sarge?”
“Yeah that was him...”
“And...Jumper?”
“Yeah...”
~*~
She couldn’t have picked a worse time to visit him.
He had just come back from a mission, a horrible bloodbath of men being blown apart, a bloodbath he had managed to escape from, unlike so many others. But he hadn’t escaped unscathed, and he had a duty to attend everyone else before he looked after his own wounds. So when she entered the infirmary at the base it was to find him, grubby and bloody with a gash down his forehead and blood all over his hands.
Her mouth thinned.
He ignored her, finishing patching up a dizzy Corporal before turning to face her, his expression calm and unruffled. Yeah his job was dangerous, but it also made him feel alive, like he was achieving something, accomplishing something. Patching up these men, men who he served with and cared about, it made him feel worth something.
She would never understand that.
“Hello Samantha.”
“John.”
He moved away from her, over to one of the stainless steel washbasins where he washed the sticky crimson blood away, “What can I do for you? Or is this a social call?”
“I was just coming to tell you goodbye.” She said tightly, mouth compressed and her dark eyes, so like his own, flashing with exasperation and anger.
“Going somewhere?” he said, casually, ignoring the lurch in his gut. Sure they hadn’t spoken in the year since he had left, apart from the birthday card they always exchanged, but he had always liked knowing his sister was nearby and safe. With the War raging, her safety had become of vital importance.
“Yes.” She said, and a small vindictive smile curled up her lips. “Mars.”
The basin clanged as he whipped around. “What?” he hissed, feeling black anger and horror sweep through him, “Mars?”
“Yes, the UAC Research facility on Olduvai.”
He snarled and in a few strides was across the room and gripping her shoulders in his hands, shaking her once and then twice.
“Olduvai!” he growled, “UAC and Olduvai killed Mom and Dad and you are going there, WHY?” he roared, “Is this some kind of joke, some kind of payback, because it’s not funny Sam, it’s not!”
She yanked out of his hold and smacked her arm against his chest, glaring at him, “This is no joke. They offered me a position as a Forensic Archaeologist; I will have a good wage, a home in Olduvai. And I will be continuing my parents work instead of turning my back on them.”
“God fucking dammit!” He wrenched himself away from her, running his fingers through his thick dark hair.
“I leave tomorrow.”
“Don’t go Sam.” He said voice softer now, but he didn’t look around. Instead he concentrated on the Infirmary wall and the poster there of an artistically knotted tree. “Don’t go.”
There was silence from behind him and then her footsteps clicked across the floor, away from him, towards the door. “I’ll see you around, Corporal Grimm.” She said coolly, and then she was gone.
~*~
That night he got extraordinarily drunk.
But the thing he remembered most about that night was not his feelings of hurt and anger and betrayal that his sister had stirred in him. What he remembered was his drinking partner, someone he hadn’t seen in a year.
“Mahonin.” The man introduced himself, voice rumbling in his big barrel like chest, “Asher Mahonin. Grimm right? I remember you from the Boot Camp last year.”
“Yeah that’s me.” John slurred faintly, blinking at the other man, recognising the coffee skin and strong jaw. “You ran that hellish obstacle course. Man I hated you.”
Mahonin grinned, a white grin gleaming against the dark skin, making his eyes crinkle at the corners, “That was me.” He agreed easily.
“What can I do for you then Sarge?” John propped his head up against his hand, feeling a little woozy but nothing he couldn’t handle. “I’m afraid that if you want me to run another Obstacle course, I am going to have to take a raincheck on it. Not going to be up for running anything tonight.”
A soft chuckle came from the man opposite him, “Not going to make you run anything, don’t worry.” He reassured the slighter man, “Just looking for someone to sit with, talk to.”
John smiled at him; dark eyes a little unfocused, “Well I’m bloody brilliant at that. Shoot.”
He didn’t remember much about the conversation the next morning, just that he had told ‘Sarge’ about his sister and the whole fucked up situation with them and their parents and Olduvai. He had listened when Sarge told him about his own experiences with his family, none of whom he spoke to any more.
He woke up with an appalling hangover and was grumpy the rest of the day.
But a few days later he was called into the Barracks admin office and there waiting for him was of the Assignment Officer and beside him was Mahonin.
“You are part of RRTS 6 now.” Mahonin told him, dark eyes shining, “My squad, Grimm.”
“If he is to be a full squad member he needs a code name.” The administrator sighed, clearly bored and wanting five o’clock to come quicker. Mahonin glared at him and then looked at Grimm who glared right back.
That made Mahonin smile. “Grimm.” He said, rolling the name in his mouth.
“Reaper.”
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Date: 2009-08-27 02:12 pm (UTC)Also John's backstory is well writte, something I missed in the movie ^^