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spacedogfromspaceThe Doctor, the Hag, and the AU, or, Bones and the Hallmark Christmas Movie Curse
Chapter 3: Screwed the Timeline
Bones takes Jim to the hospital and gets to Market Square just in time to sign Jim up for the annual ice sculpture competition. Spock is there. The Hag finally shows up to tell Bones what's what.
“I’m really sorry I hit you with my car,” Bones said for probably the fifteenth time, carefully driving to the town’s small clinic while Jim sat in the passenger’s seat giving directions while cradling his broken arm.
“Really dude, don’t worry, it’s fine,” Jim said, grimacing when a pothole jostled his arm.
“It’s really not fine. I’m a doctor, this is kind of the opposite of my thing,” Bones sighed.
Jim gave him the winning smile he always used when he tried to cheer him up, and Bones had to fight the urge not to roll his eyes at him, reminding himself that this Jim didn’t know him. “Oh come on,” Jim said. “Even doctors have to run people over sometimes. Besides, I’ve had worse.”
Bones snorted. “Yeah, I believe you on that, Jim.”
Jim squinted his eyes at him, curiously. “How do you know my name?”
Fuck. “You told me,” Bones said, trying to keep his cool. “Out on the road. I asked you your name,” he lied.
“Huh. I don’t remember that,” Jim said, sucking air through his teeth when the car dipped into another pothole.
“Sorry,” Bones muttered, cursing his terrible driving skills. “It’s probably just the shock, kid. Not unusual to forget a conversation you had right after getting hit by a car.”
“Well, you’re the doc,” Jim said, seeming to take him at his word. “Take a right here, it’s just around the corner,” he added as they approached the intersection. “I’ve forgotten your name, too.”
“It’s Leonard,” Bones said as he made the turn, seeing the small hospital and immediately turning into its modest parking lot.
“Right,” Jim said. Once the car was in park, he unbuckled his seatbelt, saying, “Thanks for the lift, Leonard.”
Bones instantly regretted giving Jim his name, because that just felt plain wrong, but he had bigger fish to fry. Namely, Jim trying to wrestle the passenger side door open without jostling his broken arm. Rolling his eyes, Bones told him, “just wait, I’m gonna walk you in. I’ll get your door, you’re gonna hurt yourself,” and he pulled himself out of the car, walking around it to help Jim out of his seat.
“You really don’t have to come in with me, you’ve spent enough time driving me here,” Jim said as Bones walked with him to the hospital entrance. “I don’t want to be more of an inconvenience.”
Bones rolled his eyes again. This fucking guy. “I hit you with my car, kid. Shut up.”
When they walked into the lobby, the first thing Bones noticed was that aside from the receptionist, it was entirely empty. The second thing he noticed was Christine Chapel walking in through the double doors leading to the hall of treatment rooms. Noticing Jim clutching his arm, she made a beeline for them, and Bones bit his tongue to keep himself from talking to her as if she was the Christine he knew from his universe.
“That arm doesn’t look too good,” she said, siding up next to Jim and placing a comforting hand on his shoulder as she took a look at his arm. Bones shook his head. Of course Christine’s bedside manner was leagues better than his, even in this universe.
Jim grinned at her apologetically. “Yeah, it’s broken.”
She nodded sympathetically. “Let’s take you back and get you patched up.” She took him by his good elbow and led him towards the treatment area.
Before they passed the double doors, Jim turned around, locking eyes with Bones. “Actually, uh, if you aren’t busy, do you think you could do me a favour?” He asked sheepishly.
“Shoot, kid,” Bones agreed.
“Could you go down to Market Square and sign me up for the ice sculpture competition? That’s actually where I was heading when, you know,” he gestured with his head towards his broken arm. “Registration closes in twenty minutes, I’m pretty sure I’m not going to make it in time,” he said with a short laugh, as if he had made a joke.
“Not a problem,” Bones said, keeping himself from shaking his head as Jim’s face lit up. As if I would say no after breaking his damn arm.
“Great! Thank you so much. Hang on, let me write down my name and phone number, you’ll need those, ah…” he looked around stupidly before looking at Nurse Chapel. “Do you have paper and a pen?”
Christine opened the small notebook that hung from her lanyard and produced a pen, then gestured to Jim to dictate to her, since she knew he wouldn’t very well be able to hold a notebook and a pen with his busted arm. When she had finished jotting down the information, she tore the page cleanly from her notebook and held it out to Bones between her first and middle fingers. Bones took it from her and pocketed it.
“I’ll get right on that,” Bones said, as Nurse Chapel began to guide her patient through the double doors. “Good luck, kid.”
“Thanks, Leonard,” Jim called back. Bones grimaced. That wasn’t going to be easy to get used to. When he got back in his rental car, he looked at the note, then fished the cellphone out of his pocket and clumsily sent a message to the number Jim had provided:
Let me know when you’re all patched up, I’ll come get you.
It took Bones nearly the whole twenty minutes to get to town square. He had driven slowly and kept his eyes peeled for any pedestrians crossing the road, not wanting to hit another person. As he pulled up to the square, he risked a glance at the digital clock on the dashboard, and cursed. He parked the car in what was probably an illegal spot, and dashed out to the table that was set up in the middle of the square, sporting a vinyl sign that read ‘Smalltown Annual Ice Sculpture Competition - Registration.’ Behind the table sat two pretentious looking organizers, bundled up in mittens and toques and cradling empty go-cups of coffee as if they were still giving off heat. They looked like they were counting down the seconds until registrations officially closed and they could pack up and retreat to somewhere warm.
“Hi, registering on behalf of Jim Kirk?” Bones said, slapping down the paper with Jim’s name and phone number scrawled in Christine Chapel’s handwriting. The two organizers looked at him with poorly concealed annoyance, and he worried that they would tell him that they were no longer accepting any registrations.
“Cutting it a bit close, aren’t we?” The blonde woman said dryly. Bones felt a wave of relief as she pulled off a mitten to add Jim to the roster.
“There was ah… something came up last minute,” Bones explained lamely, shrugging as he took back the slip of paper once she had finished copying it.
“Whatever,” the woman sighed. Her partner had begun to pack away their supplies, but she addressed Bones tiredly. “Just tell him he needs to be here at three o’ clock sharp on the twenty-third or he’ll be disqualified. He’ll have four hours and not a minute more.”
“Right,” Bones said. “I’ll tell him,” he retreated from the table as the organizer joined her partner in hastily packing up the table and chairs, ending their conversation.
He walked briskly back to his car, hoping that nobody had noticed that he had left it where he shouldn’t have. He opened the driver’s side door of the little red car and was about to get in to blast the heat when he was stopped by a voice. It was a familiar voice, but he wasn’t used to hearing it used so politely so he didn’t recognize it immediately.
“Excuse me, are you James Kirk?”
Reflexively, Bones replied, “No, sorry,” then blinked in surprise when he turned to look at who he was speaking to and found himself face to face with Spock. “What are you doing here?” He asked before he could stop himself, but luckily it seemed that Spock thought nothing odd about the question.
“I’m a journalist for Bigcity Weekly. I’m on assignment to write a piece on this year’s ice sculpture competition. I was hoping to interview James Kirk, the defending champion, though I suppose that will have to wait for another day,” Spock explained plainly.
Bones blinked at him dumbly for a minute, needing the time to process everything. It was strange seeing Spock dressed this way, in a fashionable long coat and jeans. He wore a toque but it didn’t conceal his ears, which were still pointed despite this very human universe. He shook his head to snap himself back to attention when he noticed Spock eyeing him warily.
“You’re from the newspaper for an ice sculpture competition?” He asked, mostly just parroting back what Spock had told him to buy him a few more seconds to compose himself without just staring at Spock in silence like a lunatic. “Seems like a strange use of resources,” he commented, trying to push them into a normal conversation.
“Indeed,” Spock said dryly, perhaps even bitterly. “I admit that I am not pleased by this assignment. Fluff pieces are not worth my time, but try telling that to my employer.”
A chuckle escaped Bones at the ridiculousness of this entire situation. “That sucks, man,” he said, shaking his head, mostly at how strange Spock was in this universe.
“It does,” Spock sighed, then gathered himself, standing straight and making to leave. “I’ll let you go, I’ve already taken up too much of your time.”
“It’s not a problem,” Bones said, still standing in the wake of his open car door.
“Goodbye,” Spock said, turning back to the square.
“See you,” Bones said before slumping in his car, slamming the door shut against the cold, and starting the ignition. As he waited for the heat to kick in and warm the interior of the vehicle, he sat in quiet confusion.
When the car had warmed up sufficiently, Bones took a breath and put his foot on the brake so he could throw the car into reverse. But before he did, his phone pinged, so instead he dug it out of his pocket, and saw that it was a message from Jim.
Hey, I’m all patched up. If you’re not busy could you give me a lift to my truck?
Bones typed out a response, awkwardly on the numerical keys.
Yeah, be there in a few.
He put the phone down on the console, and put the car in reverse. His eyes flicked up to the rear view mirror, and he nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw that he wasn’t alone in the car. He slammed the car back into park before he could panic and step on the gas, then spun around to confront the intruder.
“You!” Bones shouted, pointing an angry finger at the hag who knocked him out back on the Enterprise. “Who the hell are you? Did you send me here?” He demanded.
“Chill, man,” she said, raising her gnarly grey palms to him, blinking slowly. She was no longer wearing a dirty nightgown, but was instead wearing a casual Santa-themed dress, which only looked stranger on this greying old hag. “I’m the Christmas Hag, and I brought you here to learn the true meaning of Christmas,” she said in a sarcastic, sing-song voice, garnished with unenthusiastic jazz hands.
“I don’t want your jokes,” Bones snapped.
“No, really,” the hag said, adopting a more serious tone. “I really am the Christmas Hag, and I really did bring you here so you can discover the true meaning of Christmas. Sorry, I’ve done this spiel so many times - you have no idea - and it’s starting to drive me crazy.”
Bones just squinted at her for a long moment. “Is this one of those damn Hallmark movies?”
The Hag snapped her fingers. “Bingo,” she said, sounding bored. “Welcome to Hallmark AU, I’m gonna cut to the chase here. Jim and Spock were supposed to meet in Market Square this afternoon, but they didn’t. Wanna tell me why that is?”
Bones rolled his eyes. “Because I hit Jim with my car while he was walking to the square,” he answered, sounding annoyed, then angry as he suddenly remembered what caused him to hit Jim with his car. “Hey! It was your fault! You were there!”
The Hag smiled lazily. “Regardless of whose fault it is, this movie has gone off script. You’ve screwed the timeline, Bones. And it’s your job to fix it.”
“What are you talking about?” Bones asked, throwing his hands up in frustration. “This is your fault, I didn’t ask to be here, and you need to send me back to my ship. I have a life to get back to, I won’t play your stupid games!”
“If you ever want to go back to your life, you’ll listen closely,” The Hag said, returning the intensity of his glare. “If those two idiots aren’t kissing each other by the end of the ice sculpture competition, you will be stuck here forever.”
“Now wait just a damn minute,” Bones protested. “I thought I was here to learn some dumb Christmas lesson. What in god’s name does this have to do with Christmas?”
“That’s for me to know, and you to find out,” the Hag said, and before Bones could retort, she flashed a peace sign and vanished into thin air.
“FUCK,” Bones shouted, slamming his head down on the steering wheel and letting the car horn drown out the thoughts running through his head for a long minute.
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