Chapter Text
Technically, only the captain should have access to the Alpha crew’s personnel files, but Jim trusts Leonard, trusts him with his life and the lives of his crew. He gave Leonard access when he asked for it, no questions asked, along with access to the personnel files of every other member of the crew.
Leonard hasn’t been on the receiving end of such unconditional love in a very, very long time. It’s a little bit frightening, how easy Jim hands that information over, and Leonard respects that.
Why does he want the files, one might ask. Well, quite frankly? Leonard doesn’t trust easy, and while he knows that he’s surrounded by good people— Starfleet’s finest, if the Admiralty is to be believed— the word good doesn’t really translate to a McCoy. Not the way civilians use it. Good in the mouth of a civilian might just mean they haven’t been caught doing anything unsavory in public. Good in the mouth of a civilian is white to Leonard’s clear, pitch black— because if he were to judge himself by civilian standards, he’d definitely fall on the wrong side of… well, everything. Morals, law, society… the list goes on.
He’s not alone in that, of course. Jim’s right there with him, if they go by civilian standards, just as stained by rebellion and anger as Leonard is. It’s a blessing; Leonard doesn’t think he could have trusted the kid if he was the goody two-shoes the news sites seem desperate to paint him as.
Jim, according to the man himself, takes after his mother. He’s a troublemaker, plain and simple.
His track record is a mile long. Leonard has known this since the Academy, of course, but it’s one thing to hear cheerful stories in a dark bar and another thing completely to read damage reports. Jim has spent a third of his life in the system, one way or another, wreaking havoc on the lives of those who dared claim authority over him and acting as a savior to those he deemed worthy of saving— which, to Jim, is just about anybody living under any kind of authority.
It says it right there in his file— Oppositional Defiant Disorder. He got the diagnosis when he was twelve, right before they shipped him to an unnamed farming colony.
Leonard knows that colony’s name. It’s probably the reason Jim was diagnosed with PTSD roughly two years later. No, not probably. Tarsus is definitely the reason he was diagnosed.
It’s funny, Leonard thinks as he reads through a transcript of one of Jim’s convictions (at sixteen, he was tried as an adult for his fourth B&E in six months and spent a year on a different, somewhat better prison planet). Starfleet regulations state that a recruit can’t have a prior record, but somehow, it doesn’t apply to Jim. Maybe his name saved him. Maybe it was Pike’s personal interest. Regardless, it’s odd, especially when heaped on top of the fuckery that is the psychological profile of one James Tiberius Kirk.
Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Mania. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Anxiety. That isn’t the profile of a person that should be sitting in a captain’s seat. That isn’t the profile of a man who should be leading a flagship into the vast unknown. Starfleet would never allow that, not without some other, underlying purpose.
Maybe it’s because Jim’s pretty. Lord knows that boy’s looks have gotten him things no one else would even think to hope for.
Regardless, it’s something to think about the next time Leonard has absolutely nothing to do.
*.*
Spock’s file is a tad more interesting than Jim’s, probably because, outside of work and Jim’s forced interactions, he doesn’t spend much time around the guy. But no, Spock’s file is an interesting read. Why? Because apparently, according to Vulcans, Spock follows in his brother’s footsteps (a brother, who knew?) and is, for all intents and purposes, a failure among his people.
Spock is considered volatile, aggressive, unhinged… one step away from true, honest crazy, if the reports from his tutors are anything to go by. His history may not be quite so littered with criminal offenses as Jim’s, but it’s full of fistfights, tantrums, screaming matches, and tears. How does Starfleet know this? Why does Starfleet know this? There’s no reason for them to care about a little boy’s emotional outbursts— except, of course, if the little boy happens to be the son of two very important people and the great-grandson of a very powerful, very stiff-backed Vulcan who was so sure of her own influence that she could say no to a position on the Federation Council.
Spock is another mystery. With all this information, coupled with the fact that a Vulcan’s unchecked emotions can be lethal to both the Vulcan themselves and anyone stupid enough to stand in their path, he should have been denied entry into the ‘fleet, same as Jim. Same as his brother, who had applied six years earlier.
But he wasn’t.
Curious.
*.*
More surprises await Leonard in the depths of Alpha crew. It seems none of them had the sort of records that would make their mommas proud. Chekov, for instance, was picked up when he was thirteen, cooking books for some of the biggest names in the business. Sulu was yakuza, an enforcer for the Yamamoto Group, arrested for assault with a deadly weapon when he was nineteen. Uhura fleeced a foreign diplomat out of three hundred thousand credits by posing as a reporter— though, weirdly enough, she was never charged. Scotty stole a dollar from every bank account in the Federation and would have been living large on a pleasure planet if not for his taste for uranium-based experimentation.
Leonard saved his for last. Initially, it was because he thought he knew what he’d find. Now that he’s read up on his crewmates, however, he isn’t so sure. The ‘fleet knows things, intimate things, things that have never graced a legal form or a medical report, and Leonard has no idea how or why. He also doesn’t understand how in all the fiery hells any of them managed to make it onto the Enterprise, if they always had the information they apparently do. There’s no logical reason for the Admiralty to allow a bunch of (admittedly bright) criminals to stand as representatives of the Federation in the event of first contact.
Leonard’s file is as detailed and extensive as the rest of Alpha crew’s. His entire life is there, bared for all to read, neatly labelled and organized and explained in dry, succinct text.
Father to One (1) Joanna E. McCoy, Divorced. Alcoholic, Functional. Substance Abuser, Primarily Stimulants. Former Sergeant at Arms, Black Pistons.
Yeah. There’s no way in hell he— or anyone else— should be on this ship.