![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spacedogfromspaceThe Doctor, the Hag, and the AU, or, Bones and the Hallmark Christmas Movie Curse
Chapter 4: Meet Not-Cute
Bones comes up with a plan to have Jim and Spock meet each other.
“Wanna sign my cast?” Jim asked cheerily as he swung himself into the passenger’s seat of the rental car. He had been waiting just inside the hospital doors when Bones pulled up to collect him.
Bones let out a breath of a laugh. “Yeah, sure, kid,” he said. Alternate Universe or not, broken arm or not, Jim was still Jim. He checked the console looking for a pen. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything there, but he was in luck when he opened the glovebox and found a sharpie. Jim took his arm out of his sling for access, and Bones signed his name in block capital letters.
Jim looked at it and laughed. “Did you just label my arm? I thought a doctor might have been a bit more specific.”
Bones looked at Jim in confusion for a moment before he realized that the name he had written on Jim’s cast was ‘Bones.’ Damn habits, Bones thought, this is all Jim’s fault. The other one. What he said was, “It’s what my friends call me.”
Jim grinned. “Oh, I get it. Like sawbones,” he said without missing a beat.
Bones blinked at him. He felt stunned, but he didn’t know why. After all, it was Jim, or rather a Jim that had come up with the nickname in the first place. “Yeah,” he said dumbly.
Jim was chatty on the drive back to where his truck was parked, but Bones wasn’t paying much attention to what he was saying. Jim didn’t seem to take any offense, assuming that Bones was concentrating on driving so he wouldn’t hit another pedestrian. But really, Bones was busy thinking about his encounter with the Christmas Hag. Before he drove away from the hospital, he had used the cell phone to check the date. It was December 20th, and the clock on the dash reported that the time was nearly seven o’clock. Comparing that with the date and time that the ice sculpture competition would end, he would have almost exactly three days to fulfill his task. He grimaced inwardly. Three days wasn’t much time, especially since Jim and Spock hadn’t even met yet. He knew had a lot of work to do, but he didn’t even know where to start.
“That’s my truck there,” Jim said, pulling Bones back to reality. He spotted the truck that Jim was pointing at, and parked along the curb behind it. He got out of the car with Jim, intending to see him off and assure him that if he needed anything over the next few days that he could give him a call. But Bones got distracted by the logo on the side of Jim’s truck, marking it as a company vehicle.
Bones gestured to it, asking, “work truck?”
Jim shrugged. “Personal truck turned work truck.”
“What do you do for work?” Bones asked, curious as to what Starfleet’s youngest captain did for a living in this universe.
“I do deliveries,” Jim said.
“What do you deliver?”
“Whatever people need delivered,” Jim replied. “Whole company is just me and my truck. A bunch of businesses around town have me bring their supplies in from the city.”
Bones nodded. “Keep you busy enough?”
“Yeah, well enough,” Jim said. “Actually, tomorrow’s pretty busy. I gotta run to the city early to pick up a shipment for the coffee shop and have it back here in town by the time they open at seven AM,” he said. “But I have to leave extra early because I also have to pick something up for the country club that they need delivered that afternoon. Sorry, I’m rambling. I’ll let you go, thanks for the ride,” Jim said, seeing how Bones’ eyes glazed over at the details of his job.
But it wasn’t disinterest that sent Bones deep into his own thoughts. He had an idea. “Jim, wait,” he said, stopping Jim as he was climbing into his truck.
“Yeah?” He turned back to look at Bones.
“Where do out-of-towners stay around here?” Bones asked.
“Probably the motel on the east side of town,” Jim said, gesturing in a general easterly direction. “Not really any other options, I’m afraid.”
“Perfect,” Bones said, mostly to himself. “Thanks,” he said over his shoulder as he distractedly headed back to his car.
“No problem?” Jim said back, a little confused. Bones didn’t hear him.
Bones sat in his car in the corner of the Smalltown Motel parking lot. The motel was small, with only six rooms, and luckily for Bones, all the doors were on the same side of the building. It made his stakeout much easier than he thought it would have been. As he waited, the air inside the car grew colder, so he put on his mittens and burrowed deeper into his coat, reluctant to turn the ignition on in case someone noticed him lingering and assumed that he was up to something suspicious, which he was.
He checked the time impatiently every few minutes, using the display on the cellphone. He had been watching the motel room doors for nearly an hour now, and there was still no sign of his quarry. Come on, he couldn’t have turned in for the night before I got here, right? That would have been too early, he thought. On the other hand, this was Spock that he was talking about. Spock wasn’t particularly known for participating in the night life. Though, it was still early for the night life to be getting started.
Bones perked up when someone walked off the street and through the small parking lot towards the motel. Even though the sun had long gone down and the street lamp in front of the motel wasn’t working, Bones recognized Spock from his posture and his long, even gait. Perfect. He watched as Spock headed to the left side of the building and climbed the stairs to the room on the second storey. Bones waited three minutes before getting out of his car and retreating to the motel room he had booked just over an hour earlier. It was the middle room on the ground floor.
Once inside, he pulled the mittens off and blew into his hands, trying to warm them. Once some of the dexterity returned to his hands, he gathered the motel-provided plain notepad and a ballpoint pen and sat down at the small table in the corner, and wrote:
If you’re interested in a story more important than an ice sculpture competition, meet me in front of the print store on Ingal’s street at 0645.
He folded the paper in half, concealing the text, and wrote Spock’s name on the outside. Then, he left the room and crept up the stairs to Spock’s door, cursing at every creak in the old wooden stairs and wishing that Spock’s room was on the ground floor. Each unit had a large window for natural light, but the blinds were drawn to block anyone from seeing in. Bones taped the note to the window so the part with Spock’s name written on it faced into the room, and then he quietly walked back down to the ground level. He stepped back from the building so he had a good view of the window, and picked up a handful of the gravel from the parking lot. He threw one rock at the window, then another, both creating a moderately loud clacking sound. Then he waited for a moment, holding his breath.
Though the blinds were closed, they were thin enough that Bones could see that the light inside the room was on. He was about to throw another rock when a tall shadow was cast on the blinds, prompting him to run up to the building, hiding under the stairs out of view of Spock. He waited, listening closely, and sighed with relief when he heard the sound of a door opening above him, followed by a couple footsteps before the door closed again. Bones wouldn’t dare check, in case Spock had left the blinds open and was looking out the window, but he knew that Spock had taken the bait. He went back to his own motel room, making sure he opened and closed the door silently, and set an alarm for 0400 the next morning.
Bones yawned from his hiding spot in the alley beside the print store on Ingal’s street. He knew that if Spock decided to come to the meeting place that he would show up early, so Bones had gotten up especially early to ensure that he beat him to it. This was no random meeting spot. Bones had scoped it out after dropping Jim off at his truck the day before, choosing it for its cluttered alleyway and narrow sidewalk on a narrow street. It was also certainly on Jim’s delivery route to the coffee shop.
Bones checked the time. He knew that he may not have timed this properly. Jim could drive through earlier than anticipated. Spock could have decided not to show up. But Bones had his fingers crossed that his plan would work. Spock hadn’t shown up yet, however, Jim’s truck hadn’t gone by yet either, so the plan hadn’t fallen apart quite yet.
At six forty, five minutes before the proposed meeting time, Spock walked past the alleyway, presumably to wait for his mystery informant in front of the print shop. Bones crept quietly up the alley towards the street, holding his breath in an attempt to not be heard by Spock’s keen ears. He peered around the corner and saw Spock exactly where he wanted him, standing on the sidewalk close to the mouth of the alley.
It’s all coming together, Bones thought as he crouched down just inside the alley, staying hidden from Spock but having a good view of the road in the direction that Jim should be coming from. Bones just hoped that Jim would come by before Spock lost patience and left.
The stars had aligned. A surge of adrenaline ran through Bones as he recognized Jim’s truck as it rumbled down the narrow street. He stood up and tip-toed closer to Spock, his heart beating faster with anxiety. He would only get this one shot.
Not yet, not yet…. NOW. As Jim’s truck was just about to pass them by, Bones stepped out of the alley and gave Spock a hard shove, sending him stumbling into the street. He didn’t stick around to see what happened, if he was caught he would probably be detained, and he didn’t have time for that. As he dashed through the alley he did hear the sound of tires sliding through the snow as the truck suddenly braked, and he heard the impact. He flinched, hoping he didn’t get Spock hurt too badly.
Once out the other side of the alley, Bones ran around the block, stopping only when he got back to Ingal Street, where he casually walked around the corner. The headlights on Jim’s truck shone in his direction from down the block. The silhouettes of Jim and Spock standing in front of the truck gave Bones a minimal idea of what was going on. He also couldn’t hear what they were saying from this distance, but they were standing close together, which Bones took as a good sign. When both Jim and Spock got into the truck, Bones allowed himself a moment of quiet celebration. The first step to escaping this Hallmark hell was done.
Title Page & Chapter Directory