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Leonard joins Chapel in her afternoon rounds at her invitation. It feels good to be useful again, and they work together so well that when Chapel offers to make their arrangement more permanent, Leonard leaps at the chance. Over the next few weeks the two of them grow accustomed to their new routine making morning and the occasional afternoon rounds.
He really does like working with her. There’s none of the ego that often characterizes those who excel in their fields. He bows to her superior knowledge of the patients and of the school itself and she has no problem letting him take the lead when his skills are more suited to the task.
It’s almost this thought more than the truly horrible line their current patient uses in attempt to proposition Chapel that has Leonard hiding a grin.
“I never waste my time with the unemployed,” Chapel says frostily. “You’re lucky we’re a charitable institution.”
“That’s prejudice, that is,” the man whines. He’s not a bad-looking fellow, actually, except for the bright red hives. And the generally obnoxious disposition.
“Careful, man,” Leonard says, his mouth twitching up at the corners a bit. “Never piss off a Healer if you don’t want a bedpan so cold it’s got frost on the rim.” He pours a glass of juice to wash away the taste of the tonic prescribed for the man and puts it on the table next to him, as well as the small bottle of tonic. “Drink that.”
“S’not fair,” the man complains. “Why can’t you just heal this stuff away?”
“You’re hardly dying, so we’re not going to waste our healing energy on something so simple as a rash. In fact--” Leonard forgets what he plans to say next. “Jim!” he says, surprised, when he sees Jim hovering in the doorway.
Jim gives a small wave. “Sorry to interrupt. I was wondering if you were going to be free at all, but if you’re busy...”
Leonard looks at Chapel. She’s got her cool, professional face on, and smiles politely at Jim. “Not a problem, Trainee,” she says. “Just let us finish this patient and Healer McCoy can be off.” She puts her hand on Leonard’s arm in a way that probably looks friendly, but he has to try not to wince at her grip. “He’ll meet you in the courtyard out front, if that’s all right?”
“Um, sure,” Jim says, looking between the two of them for a moment.
Leonard nods. “I’ll be there directly.”
The moment Jim is out of earshot Chapel whirls on him. “You!” she says. “You know him? You know him! I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.” She smacks him on the shoulder.
“Ow.”
“And that lunch we had-- you just sat there while I gossiped about him like two kinds of idiot!”
“It wasn’t like you were cussin’ him out!” Leonard says, exasperated. “Look, it’s not a big deal. We just met on the road and sometimes we spend time together.”
“Why’s there a ruckus about some dumb Trainee?” the patient interrupts loudly. Both Leonard and Chapel ignore him.
“Not a big deal? That was the only living son of our last king that just walked in here!” she snaps.
“He didn’t ask to be born into royalty,” Leonard says quietly, looking at Chapel.
She huffs, but seems to let her anger dissipate. “I still can’t believe you didn’t tell me. You seriously owe me one.” She jerks a thumb at the door. “Now, get. Your prince is waiting.”
“...Never say those words again. Ever.”
In the bed, the patient sniggers and makes kissy faces at Leonard.
Jim is waiting, sprawled casually on a bench when Leonard steps through the main doors. He stands immediately, though, and starts walking, tossing a grin at Leonard from over his shoulder.
They pass through the gardens lining the Collegium and follow a curved path leading them behind the palace itself. Jim turns and starts walking backwards, eyeing Leonard with interest. “So what’s with you and the hotty Healer?”
“What do you mean? And stop walking like that, you’re going to fall and break your neck.”
“Bones, she was totally all over you.” Jim looks at him with mournful eyes. “You’d tell me if you were sleeping with her, right? You wouldn’t keep a secret like that from me, would you?”
Leonard glares at him. “My separation was all of two damned months ago, you infant.”
“All the more reason to be moving on! Forget her, Bones. Sow some wild oats, all that jazz.”
“Not everyone’s an oversexed asshole.”
“You wound me!”
“I’ll show you a wound,” Leonard mutters. Louder, he says, “Chapel happens to be a colleague of mine. We work well together, and that’s all, not that it’s any of your business.”
Jim, of all things, pouts at him. “But I tell you about all the people that I sleep with.”
Haven help him, but Jim did. Leonard honestly doesn’t know how Jim manages to have the time for sexual escapades with the number of classes he’s taking, no to mention the time he takes to spend with Leonard and Enterprise.
“I never asked you to do that!”
Jim rolls his eyes and turns back around to walk properly. “You are grouchy.”
“It’s not gentlemanly to kiss and tell,” Leonard says with great dignity.
Shaking his head and grinning, Jim slings an arm over Leonard’s shoulders. “You’re too good for this world, Bones.” Leonard makes a disgusted noise in response to that. Jim laughs.
The path leads them to the sturdy wood building that houses the barracks for the palace guard as well as offices for personnel and logistics of the same group. It also features its own weapons training hall separate from the Heralds Collegium. Or so Jim explains as the building comes into view.
There’s a group of guards surrounding a series of squares of hard-packed dirt and Jim waves his hand overhead at those who notice their approach. In the center of the squares there are guards battling each other. Leonard can see that they’re all using edged swords, but have padding and armor to shield themselves.
“Ho, Jim-boy!” a woman calls. Aside from her silver hair, her age is hard to determine; she has a body that is lean and muscular and she wears the sword at her hip with the easy familiarity of long use. “Brought yourself a Healer, did you?” she says, grinning. “I didn’t think we hurt you that badly last time.”
“Hardly! I brought him for the men of yours that I break.” Jim is smirking at he shakes hands with the guardswoman, who just laughs at him.
Leonard stands to the side awkwardly, not sure why Jim brought him here. He and Jim stick out like sore thumbs in this group, their grey and green tunics contrasting to the guards’ dark blue.
Jim draws Leonard forward and he also shakes hands with the woman. “Bones, this is Lieutenant Kenna. Kenna, this is my friend, Healer McCoy. He’s expressed an interest in the past about the number of bruises I seem to pick up, so I thought I’d show him where most of them come from.” Bones shoots Jim a sidelong glance-- this is not what he had meant at all.
“Yes, well, Trainee Kirk is a very dedicated lad,” Kenna says, inclining her head graciously at Jim. “I don’t suppose you’d like to take a turn on the field?” she enquires of Leonard, who immediately puts his hands up in a warding off gesture.
“I’m a Healer, not a fighter,” he says.
“Suit yourself. Kirk, you in?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Jim leads Leonard to a heavy wooden bench that lines one outer wall of the building. “I thought the Heralds were teaching you how to fight,” Leonard says as he sits down.
“Heralds,” Jim scoffs, “they’re so upright they even fight honorably. Most of them don’t get that sometimes the only thing that’s going to save your skin is a well-placed punch to the kidneys. Guards have their priorities right, at least. Kenna’s shift, they’re the best there is. They’ve got to be, they cover the slums.”
“And they just let you join them?”
“I can be very persuasive.” He gives Leonard that charming, smart-ass grin of his before letting it slide off his face like a mask. He leans in a little closer. “Look, if you want to leave, you can. I just thought-- I’m sure you’ve got better things to do.”
Leonard doesn’t hesitate. “I spend so much time taking care of your injuries, I might as well deal with them at the source.” He gets a smile for that, one that he can tell is actually genuine.
Jim heads over to the spot where other guards are gearing up, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet. He seems to know everyone, exchanging greetings and handshakes with the guards in line to bout. Then Leonard’s attention is drawn to the squares as men and women guards fight each other with varying degrees of ability.
He manages to stay seated for all of a few minutes before one of the dueling fellows gets an elbow to the face.
“You gob be in da nobe!” the man is complaining to his partner.
“Oh, don’t be such a baby,” the other guard says, leading him off the practice square for the next fighters, a group of three, to take their turn.
“Let me take a look at that,” Leonard says brusquely. Not waiting for an answer, he steps up and raises his hands to the man’s face. Startled, the guard raises his own hands before Leonard smacks them away. “Don’t move,” he orders. After a moment he steps back. “Well, you managed not to break anything. It’s just bruised and it’ll hurt for a few days, though I stopped the bleeding.”
“Can’ you heal id?”
He gives the man a flat look. “I could heal it, but I’m not going to. You earned that hit fair and square. Maybe the pain will teach you not to leave your guard down next time.” The injured man gives him an unhappy, pleading expression. Bones just cocks an eyebrow at him.
He’s a little startled to hear laughter off to the side. Kenna is grinning and she aims a light punch to Leonard’s biceps. “He’s certainly got your number, Mitchell!”
And that, it seems, is all it takes to be welcomed among the guards. They come to him instead of the other way around. He spends enough time healing valid injuries and fielding questions about mysterious rashes that he doesn’t much pay attention to the fights going on. Unless Jim is involved.
It’d be nice to say that Jim was a vision to behold, but Leonard sees him knocked flat on his back too many times for that to be true. Admittedly, this mostly happens when he’s up against multiple opponents, but still, he’s no Lieutenant Kenna, who tears her way through whole swaths of fighters like a hurricane and comes out the other side not even breathing hard.
Leonard likes watching Jim, though. It’s clear that Jim takes a fierce sort of joy in battle. He has a wildness about him, an energy that is undaunted no matter how many falls he takes.
That kind of determination, or bull-headed stubbornness as some might say, Bones can’t help but respect. With a little amusement he reflects that it’s a trait they both share, even if he himself tempers it with more than a little pessimism.
Speaking of Jim... Leonard sees him now, chatting with a tall man with red hair. He squints a little at the scene, because the mischievous expression Jim’s wearing never bodes well, and then gets distracted by some kid who seems barely out of puberty with a sprained wrist. After that there’s a young woman in the early stages of pregnancy who’s worrying about when the combat training will start to effect the child.
He’s so focused that he doesn’t even notice Jim’s redhead accomplice creep up on him until the man grabs him from behind.
Leonard allows reflex to dictate his actions-- he elbows the man hard in the solar plexus, there’s a grunt of pain and the arms loosen their grip. With that opportunity, Leonard turns and aims for the jaw with the heal of his hand, snapping the guard’s head back. The man staggers away a few steps until Bones grabs him around the neck and basically throws him to the ground.
His thought process returns when he finds himself pinning the guard face-first into the ground, twisting the other man’s arm behind his back and a knee pressing into the small of his back. Leonard doesn’t move for a moment, just pants and thinks he can hear his heart pounding.
“...Can you get off me now?” the redhead assailant says, voice strained and muffled.
Leonard gets up. His limbs are trembling slightly with reaction, adrenaline still coursing his veins. He’s aware that the guards around him have stopped whatever they were doing and are staring. Jim in particular looks like his eyes might fall out of their sockets.
“I’m a Healer,” Leonard says. “That doesn’t mean I don’t know how to hurt if I have to defend myself.”
Next to Jim, Kenna is snickering with laughter. “Serves you right, Jim-boy! And you, Nelson,” she adds to the redhead who is slowly getting to his feet. “Shame on you boys, playing pranks on a green tunic.”
“Sorry,” Leonard says to Nelson, who’s rubbing his sore jaw. “I didn’t really intend to-- well, let me heal--”
“Don’t you dare, McCoy!” Kenna says. “He deserves it, for underestimating you so.”
Nelson looks rueful, but seems to agree so Leonard doesn’t push it. He collapses onto the bench behind him and runs a hand through his hair. Jim sits next to him.
“You’re a bastard, you know that, right?” Leonard says with a mildness that surprises even him. He’s tired; though he hasn’t done a full healing on anyone that day, the minor efforts he’s gone to in the last few hours add up.
“Sorry. I didn’t think you had any defense training. I was going to try to convince you...” Leonard stares at him incredulously and Jim winces. “Yeah, maybe not one of my better plans.”
Leonard snorts.
The two of them sit quiet and watch the bouts going on for a while.
“It was my mother,” Leonard says eventually. “She was armsmaster for Lord Donal for over thirty years. She taught me and all the cousins how to hold our own in a fight.” He smiles at the memories. Kenna actually reminds him of her, though his momma sure cussed a hell of a lot more. “We buried her in her armor, actually.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. That was about eight years ago.”
“That must have been tough,” Jim says quietly, looking at the ground.
Leonard thinks about the parade that gets held every year on Remembrance Day, and wonders if it’s easier not to have a parent when you never had the chance to meet them. He knows he won’t ever ask Jim, though.
“What about your mother?” he does ask, mostly to make sure that Jim won’t ask about Leonard’s father. Last he heard, the dowager queen was still living reclusively in the old palace at the base of the mountains. “Ever spend time doing something?”
“No,” Jim says.