A Beautiful(ly Illogical) Mind Summary: Jim never takes up Pike's dare to do better.

Close-canon movie AU, with touches of Good Will Hunting. Work Text: The answer is 233/hy7. Has been for all three months of the first semester. Jim's not sure why the galaxy's best and brightest haven't realized that, but it's not his school, not his problem. Stillit's three months into the semester and it just sits there, black ink on a white board, expectant, hopeful, justwaiting. And Jim knows the answer, because it's not a hard equation. If h^4=zy/21x, then the answer has to be 233/hy7. And yeah, he can prove it. But like he said. Not his school, not his problem. Still, when midterms dawn with the sluggish cadets with hollow circles around their eyes and messy hair, and still no one even tries, Jim can't really resist temptation anymore. Not that he's ever been good at resistingwell, anything. He glances at his watch; Bones won't be done yet. He ducks into the empty classroom, and scribbles down the answer. He takes a second to make sure it's legible (Jim has been informed he could be a doctor, his handwriting's so bad, which is rich, coming from Bones), and then recaps the pen and goes to collect Bones for a good old-fashioned just-finished-exams-fuck-my-life celebration. Which for them involves Bones bitching loudly about Jim's bike ("An invitation to death. Do you know what would happen to your flesh and vital organs when you wipe out and are scraped over the pavement?"), the Kikonese restaurant five blocks down the road ("Kikonese III is a dirty backwater full of the obese. It's eugenics in reverse, goddamn it"), lots of fatty, starchy foods ("This is a heart attack waiting to happen. It's heart failure and obesity wrapped in stealthy delicious exteriors"). Complaining makes Bones happy, and Jim is a good friend. There are vast quantities of alcohol (the hard stuff), and a loud enough atmosphere so that swearing and ranting are par for the course. The Kikonese are a bit bigboned, sure, but they're loud and friendly and mind their own business. Which is good, because once Bones gets started on a tear, there is no stopping him, and Jim isn't exactly known for his mitigating personality. Most other places would chuck them out (Jim knows from experience), but Ms. Hasai, the owner, gave Jim his first job when he came out to the coast after ditching Iowa. It'd been about four months after Captain Pike's pretty weak attempt to manipulate him to be a Starfleet bullet-catcher ("I dare you to do better" his ass. "I dare you to die quicker", more like) when Jim had hopped on his bike and just rode west. He hadn't even considered the offer, the challenge- you could get into space without being tied to regulations and formalities and a fucking chain of command that was bullshit; and Jim had been "George Kirk's son" all his life. He didn't need that to be his only legacy; having George rubbed in his face usually brought out the worst in Jim. Starfleet wouldn't have known what hit it, and Jim would have been tossed out in a second, and Starfleet would have put him away for a long time, not just a little while like Iowa. Still. The thing was: he was done being George's boy. And because Starfleet is based in San Francisco the population is wildly varied and extremely transient; easy to to get lost in the bustle of the city, and for the first time since he'd watched Tarsus IV grow larger in the window of his shuttle (and motherfucker, that had been a disaster) he'd felt home. Two years later, give or take a few months, Jim's a bartender at a bar just outside the trendy section- they get locals, regulars, and cadets, but no

businessmen, and no tourists, and he pitch-hits for a few other local bars owned by people who helped him out when he first got here. He knows the circuit well enough to impress the cadets he dates with the clubs and restaurants he can get into, and his life is constant, moving- he's got no instincts itching to be a repeat-offender here. Here, he's occupied by the constant stream of people running through his life both platonically andnot. But really, the only person who's stuck at all is Bones. He met Bones his first night bartending in a dump outside the Academy. He'd slouched onto the stool with a scowl that almost cleared the bar, and grouched that he wanted "whatever piss you've got- 'cause I ain't got nothin' but my bones, and they need some goddamn waterin'." Jim had snorted and poured him a whiskey, straight up. "On the house, Bones." They've been friends ever since (whiskey is the way to Bones' heart, apparently), and Jim supervises Bone's alcoholism like any good friend would. "The only one with any sense is Chapel," Bones gripes after the fourth drink and their third plate of fries with cheese and gravy with Kakrasnsi peppers. "And I probably won't even get stationed with her." He ponders the injustices of his future; it makes Bones happy to be upset. "Probably get Banner." "Probably," Jim agrees blithely, grinning and licking his fingers. "Jim, don't let anyone tell you you're a good friend," Bones informs him around his scotch. "Because you suck." "Aww, Bones!" Jim bats his eyelashes, and Bones throws his napkin at him. "An' stop licking your fingers!" he snaps. "Spreadin' your germs, who knows what I'm gonna come down with because of you." After he solves the equation, Jim doesn't think about it at all for a week. There are four parties to do, then the consequential remembering that yeah, he can do a straight 50 hours awake, but as soon as he starts nearing 65 he starts to hallucinate (it'd been such good money, though, and Jim likesshiny things). When he wakes up after a powernap of oh, 24 hours, he fishes out the number one of the cadets gave him. Hot chick, green skin and red hair, rockin' body- Gaila laughs and tells him to pick her up at 1903, after her class. Which means he has to ask an officer what the fuck time that is, because he goes by normal-people time. He stops by at 6:50 and hangs outside her classroom, which is in the same building Bones' exam was in. He glances across the hall into room with the problems, and there's another problem written under the first. Jim watches it quietly, waits for the numbers to slide into the right pattern the way they always do. He likes numbers- numbers just are. You're either right or wrong with mathno exceptions. Black and whites, and Jim's not actually really good with shades of grey. No one's in the room- the professor must not teach a late class, so Jim (who, again, has never been accused of having self-control) goes in. He works the problem out, realizes that depending on how you read it there are actually three different outcomes- but he has to work through them to be sure, and it gives him something to do for ten minutes until the sound of voices swells in the hallway. He quickly steps outside the room because he doesn't want that "You're not a student, what the fuck are you doing in a classroom?" lecture he's already had a few times (perils of dating cadets), or some douchebag like Cupcake to decide to pick a fight.

Gaila seems to have changed out of her uniform in like, the five seconds between the class ending and when she walks down the hall, but she's in this absolutely phenomenal little black dress (and oh, does he mean little), so he doesn't give a shit. They go out dancing and then she rides him hard, scratching welts into his skin and fuck it's fantastic.

"Hello, sunshine," he greets, beaming at Bones. It earns him a few incredulous stares, and a nursing student mutters "your funeral" as he runs fast. Christine Chapel smiles faintly at him, tucking a piece of blonde hair behind her ear and standing serenely from her perch a few steps above Bones. Jim winks at her as she turns to go meet her fianc.

Christine Chapel is a platinum blonde bombshell who's smarter than almost everyone, just fairlynaive. But she's the kind of naive that high school kids And then there's a solid week of nothing but work again, and then a month have- he's pretty sure once she steps out into the real world some of that where he just pisses time away. The money he's made is enough to actually feel steady, and so he rides around on his bike, tourist-watching, then fucks will fade. Still, Jim wants her on his side if she's ever in a barroom ball. around with Gaila a few more times, decides to buy a plant for his "Drinks. Now," Bones insists, wrapping his hand around Jim's arm and apartment, considers ordering something called a "Tribble" (it looks cute, steering him straight back off campus to the bike, which he sits on without but Jim's not good with animals, and he doubts he'd be better with alien complaint, just grim fatalistic resolve. animals than Earth animals). Jim drives him to the seediest bar where Bob won't cut Bones off and where He sees Uhura around a few times: she's still so smoking hot, and now he everyone is just as miserable as Bones is. Jim's that kind of friend. just likes messing around with her because she is wound so tight, but in that It's his daughter's birthday tomorrow, and after he recovers from the crazy-smart way that he likes. hangover Bones sits in Jim's apartment to have a video conference, and He thinks he'd just like her- they could be friends if he was a different guy. Jim has to get out, go away, because it's breaking his heart how bad Bone's Steadier. Calmer. Not constantly sporting a split lip and a fading bruise on is shaking and how well he's hiding it from her. his cheekbone. And if he goes back to the classroom to see if there's another problem upStill. it's just that he's going to need to be sober to deal with the fallout from Bones, and the math just sort ofsettles him. If he solves another problem in the empty room on the first nice day of March? Nobody's business but his. And there is, and he sits on a desk in the empty room and surveys it. Physics, this time- properties of motion. He chews on the pen for a few minutes before getting up and dragging over another board, working Late March he gets an emergency call from Bones that goes something like, through it. Not quite- he's missing a variable. So he erases it, and then "Goddamn it, Jim, if you don't come pick me up I'll give them all Bufarian begins working it out again and there it is- the fourth variable is space. Ekal Influenza. See if I don't, and I'll smash all the antibiotics, Jim, I swear I He grins slightly, chewing on his lower lip as he works the equation out. will." Because Bones is a dramatic motherfucker, so Jim calls Brian and asks him to cover his shift (there maybe promises of someone getting blown, whatever), and goes to pick him up. He parks the bike and walks across campus to where he knows Bones will be sitting on the steps of the medical building scowling at everyone. No one scowls quite like Bones does. It's a thing of goddamn beauty. "- Nobody knows who did it!" a cadet is saying. He seems really worked up about something; Jim'd say touching his first boob, but it doesn't match the conversation. Still, kinda sad that he looks that excited about something that isn't sex. "Nobody?" "Not even Commander Spock," someone else confides with the air of delivering a trump card. "I mean, the first time, got it right. The second time? All three answers. It never even occurred to me! And now this one! I mean, the Peurlian Theorum has been studied for centuries- even Vulcans have a hard time proving it, and this person- " "The security feeds didn't catch it?" another kid asks, and Jim pauses with a slight frown, listening, because three answers, and he knew he should have resisted temptation. "A class was letting out, I guess," another replies with a heavy sigh. "I mean, Chekov got two of the three on the second one, but it's- it's definitely the same handwriting. Spock's leaving them up so we can all feel inadequate." "Like we don't already while he stares at us," the first guy snorts. Jim wants to stop them and ask what they're talking about, if it is himthinks oh shit, I'm in trouble before he remembers this isn't his school- this isn't Iowa, and they can't blame shit on him just for the hell of it. Free Federation, Earth, and country after all. "You are not a cadet, nor a member of Starfleet."

Jim jumps guiltily, turns to look at whoever is saying it in that mildly interested but somehow detached voice. Takes in the ears and eyebrows andgodawful haircut and- Vulcan. Right, that explains the voice. "No," he agrees. "And yet you have solved four of my problems." He steps around the desk, tilting his head slightly. Jim wonders if saying "Yeah, no shit" will get him arrested for trespassing on Starfleet property. That would suck balls. Hairy, unwashed, outer-rim pilot balls. Not that Jim's had any experience here, or anything. "I promised an immediate A and a recommendation and commendation for the student who first solved the problem here," the Vulcan continues, looking at Jim's math. "An A would mean nothing to you, a commendation, given that you are not in fact a member of Starfleet, would be superfluous and inconsequential." He turns to look at Jim, tilting his head to look him up and down. "Would you like a recommendation to get into the Academy?" Jim snorts, shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "No." "That is illogical, please explain." Jim sighs, and scrubs his face. "It's just math. Doesn't mean I want to go up" he waves out the window. "There." He looks at the other guy- despite the bowl cut, he's got long lines and clear eyes and Jim is no specist, and he's never actually gone out with a Vulcan before, and what the hell- he can't go back to his place for a few hours anyway. "I won't say no to a drink." Which is how he ends up in a restaurant that caters to a pretty elite clientele, where the maitre'd smiles simperingly at "Commander Spock" and

takes in Jim's leather jacket, grey t, and ratty low-hanging jeans (Gaila loves them, she calls them his "Up or Off" jeans). Jesus Christ, he's Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. So Jim does what he always does when he's getting the hairy eyeball. He splays his legs, slouches, and grins crookedly. And despite the atmosphere from the other patrons the food is good, and the view is amazing, and the drinks fizz pleasantly. Jim's never been the kind of guy who just sinks into the floor because someone disapproves. He has the rap sheet to prove that. "Are you a consultant?" Spock asks after the first course arrives. "No. I'm a bartender," Jim replies, leaning his chair onto its back two legs and grinning at him. Spock seems about as distraught as a Vulcan can get that Jim has no ambition. Join the club- everyone who's ever met Jim is in that fucking club. It's a good time, though. He likes Spock, for all that it takes him a minute to deal with his Vulcan-ness. He even thinks he can detect a sense of humorhe's not sure: it requires further investigation. So a week later he shows up at the Academy not for Bones, but to pick up Spock. There's a tiny Russian kid in the room and Uhura, so Jim perches on the edge of a desk and swings his feet. Uhura frowns between Jim and Spock before coming to the completely wrong conclusion. She smirks at him, shrugs, and leaves. Apparently because Jim is so formidable in the pretty that he scares off people who are genuinely interested in the person he's supposedly fucking. It makes him grin, but he feels kind of bad for Spock, though, 'cause Uhura is hot. Spock looks at him, then at the board where there's another problem set up. Jim rolls his eyes, but what the hell, clearly this is going to take a while because Spock is trying to explain Kirrria's Theory to the kid. So he settles and chews the pen, works slowly through it. He realizes, belatedly, that it's gone quiet, and that Spock's shoulder is a warm press against his. "You solve it in a singularly unique way," Spock observes. He presses a datafile into Jim's hand before collecting his coat. "Your mind is even more Human than most of my students'." "Coming from you, that's a compliment," Jim informs him cheerfully. And it becomes a thing- Spock has a problem waiting for him, Jim solves it in his "singularly Human" way, Spock gives him more stuff to work on. Sometimes the datafiles are math theories, but sometimes it's physics or chemistry or astrophysics, philosophy, literature, language, sociology- it's always different, and always interesting, and Jim takes them to work to read when things get slow. Jim's favorite thing, though, is when Spock stares at him in bemusement when Jim plays dumb in public, but calculates bills, tabs and tips in his head. "I don't understand why you would not want others to know." "What's the point?" Jim asked, biting on a straw and handing a new guy his bill. Spock is so out of place here in his crisply pressed uniform and not a hair out of place, but because he doesn't care (or doesn't seem to), no one gives him shit about it. And plus, since Jim's the only one Spock ever talks to, everyone just assumes he's with Jim. And Jim's not bragging or anything, but fucking nobody messes with Jim lately. "It is illogical to hide a skill set." Jim shrugs. "I'm not really hiding it. I'm just not, you know, using it for the greater good."

"This is ridiculous," the new guy informs him flatly. He's clearly come into new money or closed a business deal; the celebration had the stink of selfentitled congratulations. "No way did we drink that much." Sure, the bill's for $4,302.39, but they did order three bottles of the $1,200 wine, and then they had the Romulan Ale, which goes down hard and keeps you ordering (and, because it's slightly illegal, is way overpriced). Not Jim's fault they bought so much. "Yeah, Peaches, you did," Jim replies just as flatly, because this is just not what he wanted to be doing tonight. He hasn't been in a fight in a few weeks, Spock's here and after they were going to go see some exhibit so Spock could further Jim's cultural horizons or some shit like that. "Yes, I can see how this is preferable," Spock says drily, lifting his eyebrow at Peaches. "Vulcan pig, dunno why we even put up with you," Peaches' friend says. JIm decides to call him "Cream". "Because if you had attempted to conquer Vulcan we would have destroyed you," Spock replies very logically. Jim buries his face in his hands with a groan. There's a muffled gasp, then another, and the bar goes quiet. Jim peeks out, and then stares. Peaches and Cream are on the floor, and Spock is handing him the money. "Jim," Spock urges patiently, holding out the money. Jim takes it, still staring at the collapsed forms. "Spock, tell me you didn't kill them," he says finally. "Humans are a melodramatic race," Spock observes. "I merely sedated them." Jim looks at the huge guys on the floor, then at Spock, then back again. "You have got to teach me that," he decides. And that's how Jim starts sparring with Spock. "This is highly illogical," Spock informs him almost dispassionately as sweat drips into Jim's eyes. "You are progressing, but not at a rate which enable you to win." He offers Jim a hand up, looking at the split and bloodied lip, and the fading scabs under his eyes. His hand reaches like he wants to trace them, and Jim's breath hitches, his whole body waiting, but there's nothing. Spock just tilts his eyebrow the way he does when he's amused or intrigued. "That's not the point," Jim informs him. "You get to beat someone up, which is good for your whole repressed thing- " "I beg to differ- " "- and I," Jim continues over him grinning, "get to figure out how to drop badasses." He also jerks off every fucking night to the remembered feel of Spock against him, wondering what it would feel like to have Spock arched over him, fucking him hard, or to settle on top, bouncing on Spock's cock and making him crazy with itNot that Spock needs to know that. "Hey, cocksucker!" Cupcake shouts. Jim rolls his eyes, keeps walking, because Cupcake was so two years ago, and Jim isn't in the mood. "What, you only suck Commander Spock's cock these days? C'mon, sunshine- " A fat, meaty hand lands heavy on his shoulder as a big foot kicks his knees in, and Jim's not even thinking about it, not really, just falls into it, and when he stands up, he's the only one standing. Two days later the cops show up at his door and arrest him for attacking Starfleet Cadets, and the charges leveled against him are every charge in the book.

Bones shows up to offer support, and Uhura stops by and says, "Why don't you tell them what happened? I'm sure Captain Pike would speak on your behalf, considering last time." Even Chekov, the tiny Russian kid, stops by and offers him a datafile from Spock. History, this time. Jim settles and reads. He's got a record for assault, lewd and licentious behavior, grand theft auto, breaking and entering, and possession of an illegal weapon (most of those his stepfather lodged against him, but Jim's no angel). He's had psych evaluations since birth, practically, and they all say he's a walking time bomb- that he's a repeat offender with a rage problem, some of them even suggest sociopathy. They all say he's too smart. Spock doesn't show up at the holding cell. Jim's not disappointed. He's not. It wouldn't be logical for Starfleet's golden Commander to show up to see the delinquent. Jim's not disappointed at all. Except three days later a guard hands him one of those Starfleet Academy uniforms. Jim puts it on because his clothes reek, and hey, he'll go with it. "I spoke with the judge. I convinced them that I would take responsibility for your actions, but as such you must be placed in my care. I have enrolled you," Spock informs him, rounding the corner. Jim's fingers still on the buttons. "What?" "You have already tested out of three years' worth of classes, your curriculum is centered in command classes. Captain Pike will be willing to tutor you in areas which I am not an adequate advisor," he continues as if Jim hasn't said anything, as if Jim's not staring at him like he's out of his fucking Vulcan mind. "Are you out of your fucking mind?" Jim demands.

to do well, and Pike expects him to do well, and Spock expects him to do fucking perfectly, and Jim isIf he'd known this could be like this, he'd have gone as soon as he could drive (which was8). He gets straight As. Admiral Archer pulls him into his office and says, "I never knew your father, but I'm told he was an exceptional man. I think he'd be proud to know I'm recommending you for a commission as soon as you've graduated." Jim grabs Spock and takes him out to celebrate, and after they go to Spock's place because Jim doesn't want to bug Bones, and then Jim has Spock pressed against a wall, kissing him hard and deep. "Fucking amazing," Jim mutters, tearing his mouth away from Spock's and biting his neck sharply, then laving his tongue over that greenish mark. Spock arches his neck in a silent plea for more of the same, which has Jim huffing a laugh over his skin as he trails his fingers over the palm of Spock's hand, causing him to shudder (because Vulcan erogenous zones are bizarre, and sort of awesome). And then Spock is shoving him onto the bed, stripping off his shirt, his pants, his boots and socks. Jim is still shoving his pants down his hips, boots on, when Spock bends to assist him. He stares down at Jim's body for long enough that it gets awkward (though Jim's cock, which is leaking against his stomach, approves). There is a twitch of lips that means Spock is totally onto him before he braces a hand on one of Jim's shoulders, shoving him down, settling his other forearm across Jim's hip bones. He takes a moment to examine Jim's cock like it's some sort of fucking specimen before he licks up the underside.

Jim muffles his groan by shoving his fist into his mouth, because Spock seems to enjoy that first taste and he's not- not deftly talented, but he's so Spock looks at him, amused (and Jim thinks it's possible he's one of the few fucking thorough, sucking the tip and sliding his tongue along the slit, people who could actually identify it as amusement). "I am not. This is why it mouthing and licking and sucking and fucking unpredictable, and Jim's hips is illogical for you not to enroll. Even in this city, the world is too small for keep on bucking up, especially when Spock sucks while swirling his tongue, you. If you would?" he asks the guard, who sighs and unlocks it. but Spock holds him down. And Jesus, he's just so fucking strong and that's hot as anything. Bones is waiting, glaring at Spock like he's the one who locked Jim up. Spock travels lower, sucking on Jim's balls experimentally, licking the "So you're enrolled." smooth skin behind them. "Apparently," Jim agrees, shooting a look at Spock, who's filling out "Fuck, Spock, want you- c'mon, you bastard, do me, fuck me," Jim pants, paperwork. pressure building in his balls, at the base of his spine, at the fucking base of Jim's confused why Starfleet wants him, though. Despite Spock and Pike's his skull and then Spock reaches under his pillow for the slick he keeps added influence, he put five cadets in the hospital. there, grinning with his eyes in a way that seems so much fucking better than even Gaila's wide grins. "We testified, you idiot," Bones groans a week later when Jim brings it upStarfleet let them room together (Jim suspects because they can't believe Jim lifts an appreciative eyebrow at him and then flops back with a groan, anyone wanted to room with Bones) as he works on a lab. because that bastard. He can't bear to watch if he has any hope of not Jim is writing a paper, trying to remember how to write a paper, as facts rattle around in his brain, jockeying for attention. "That green-blooded goblin rounded up me, Chapel, Uhura, Chekov and- what's the other one's name? The one with the swords you go running with, hangs out with Chekov a lot." "Sulu."

coming his brains out before Spock's even in him, and then Spock's bending his legs back, positioning his cock at Jim's entrance and Jim manages, "Spock, just do it." And so Spock's cock slides in, big and Jim shudders, tries not to clench down, tries to force his body into relaxing and Spock really doesn't even give him a second, just fucks him, deep and hard and Jim wraps a leg around Spock's hip, arching shamelessly into it because fuck, yes.

"Right. Got us all in with Pike and had us testify for the judge." There's a pause, and then Bone groans. "Goddamnit Jim, keep your fucking hardon to And then Spock is biting his neck and that's it, he's exploding and striping yourself." both of them, and Spock exhales raggedly, the air skating over Jim's neck Jim hurls a book at his head- he is not hard, Jesus. "Shut up, Bones." hot and wet, and then he's coming- didn't pull out, just filling Jim There is a little of what he worried about- there are people who look at him and Jesus that's hot, and Jim yanks him up for a kiss. It's irresponsible and as George Kirk's boy, but he's like some sort of wunderkind here, and more totally unsafe sex, which Jim thinks is completely illogical but he's always people look at him and go, "He's the kid Spock vouched for." been a bit of a slut, and he gets tested pretty regularly (and, you know, there's always Bones with the newest vaccine), and it's hot and Jim never And somehow he's not tied up in a father he never knew, but rather a claimed to be smart about Spock. Vulcan who kicks his ass every Thursday and has drinks with him every Saturday. And it's a different kind of pressure, because Bones expects him In the morning they do it all over again in the tiny shower.

"I don't think this," Jim manages between kisses as the water beats down on their heads, "is what the judge had in mind when he told you to 'take me in hand'." Spock shuts him up with a pretty clever twist of his wrist. The Kobayashi Maru is a bitch. Jim hates it. Fails the first two times- fails, and he hasn't failed since he got here. So he hacks it. Because it's bullshit. Because it asks you what you'd do in the middle of a clusterfuck- assumes you'd get into the clusterfuck in the first place, and Jim won't. So he hacks the test. And Uhura stares at him as he munches his apple, rubbing her temple and trying hard not to smile, and Bones is looking at him with resigned amusement. The lights go up, and someone has turned to look at- Spock. Who is watching him speculatively. Get it, Spock, Jim wills him. Get what I'm saying, here. "How the hell did he do that?" the man on the other side of the glass repeats, and Spock tilts his head slightly. "I do not know." Later, Jim gets summoned to Spock's office. "Logic dictates that I should have you brought up on charges of violation of the ethical code of conduct pursuant to regulation 1-7.43 of the Starfleet Code." Jim licks his bottom lip, looking at the desk, at the books, at the computers. Anywhere but Spock. "Is there a "but" here?" "The purpose of the test is to feel fear. Hopelessness." "No, it's to tell you won't ever be good enough- " "It is not a test but a lesson, a lesson you failed to absorb- " "I had a father die in one of those goddamn no-wins, Spock, and he had a win. I know better than anyone exactly what the fuck lesson you wanted to teach, and- " "I am recommending they forgo the inquiry." "- I know exactly what the- what?" "Over the past year I have studied the way your mind works," Spock says. "To expect you to take that test in the way it was intended was illogical. I have submitted that my encouragement of you to persist in repeated attempts at taking the test was to determine how you would react in a nowin." Jim frowns at him. "Wait- what?" "The test it designed as a psychological test and evaluation of cadets nearing graduation." "Okay." Spock touches his face lightly before lifting an eyebrow with a faint smile. "Captain Pike and I agree that you have passed it as it was intended in your case. We do not hold a little sway in Starfleet Command." "That's favoritism. I think you're emotionally compromised," Jim says, starting to grin and leaning into him. Spock looks down at him. "Yes," he agrees simply. "I am." And that deserves a bent-over-the desk kind of fucking. They get word that Vulcan is sending out a distress call. And Jim remembers the lightning storm, and Jesus Christ- it's a fucking trap, and

Vulcan is history. So he grabs Uhura, who complained how no one listened to her reports about the Klingon planet that got destroyed by a Romulan ship, and then runs (with Bones behind them, because someone has to be sanity on the Enterprise). "Kirk- " And Jim explains that it's a trap- Vulcan is being attacked, with Uhura backing him up, and Spock watches them before backing them up. And then it's hell, with suicide missions, and Jim and Spock having it out (because he's wrong, and Jim loves the man and he feels horrible about his mother but he's fucking wrong, because now that bastard's going to Earth and having a little pow-wow with Starfleet isn't going to fix anything), and Spock fucking marooning him. And then meeting older, alternate universe Spock (which is just so weird, with the mindmeld and getting it that this is about Spock but that it's not about his Spock and getting Scotty and coming back, watching Spock stare at him incredulously and then having it right on out, taking over command andAnd then the real suicide mission, aboard the Romulan ship to save Pike, and the Romulans are strong motherfuckers, but Jim's smarter. "The statistical likelihood that our plan will succeed is 4.3%," Spock informs him. "It'll work," Jim says with a grin, because it will. It has to. "In the event that it does not I would like for you to know that I- " "Spock," Jim interrupts. "It'll work. Tell me later." Because goodbye isn't an option. Sulu and Chekov fire, Scotty gives them the energy they need, and he finds Pike, who is still a bit of a badass, even miserable and weak. "Enterprise, now!" he shouts, and then the three of them are on the transporter pad, and Jim grins. "Nice timing, Scotty." Scotty's completely beside himself with joy- give the man an impossible task and he's happy- with Bones, Uhura and Chapel running in. And then Spock doesn't want the logic, and Jim has to deal with Nero instead of kissing him, but the press of Spock's arm against his is a promise that Jim can't wait to cash in. And it's strangely beautiful- poetic maybe, to see the ship die in its own lightening storm, and then it's gone. And they can't get out. Which is problematic, but Jim is smart enough to know when to trust someone else's genius, and Scotty is a crazy kind of genius, and it works, and when he looks over at Spock, there's that faint smile of "See? This is why I pushed." "Pretty exciting, huh?" he asks later, in quarters with Spock's hands on his hips, pressed together with everything just a warm promise of what's coming. "I mean- " "You have a singularly illogical mind," Spock informs him, kissing him. "Nah, you love it." They get back to Earth and the press is fucking everywhere. Stepping off the shuttle Jim's blinded by the flares and flashes, by the shouts of his name. Everyone wants to talk to Jim- and suddenly he's George Kirk's kid againwants to talk to Spock, because Spock is one of the 10,000 Vulcans left, and he's the one who was on the ship.

"Commander Spock!" a woman shouts. "What was your role in the events that transpired in the skies today?" Jim makes a face at her- Uhura elbows him sharply and says through her own gorgeous smile, "Stop it." "Never leave me," he mutters back. She grins at him, real and vibrant. "I guess someone should keep you in line. Captain." She doesn't leave him, though, in the whirlwind of press and hearings. He moves back to his old apartment because the dorms are too quiet, hallways ringing with echoes of footsteps that won't fall ever again. Bones shows up on his door with a haggard look, and Jim steps aside and pulls out the sofa bed, no questions asked.

He leans against the bar, grinning slightly. "Probably not." His mother is a tough subject for him- she wasn't ever there, but they never had a rough relationship. She was always easy to be around, not like the other moms but somehow cooler. She drinks her beer and nods to Spock. "Hear you're the one who got Jim to join," she says. "I - " "He manipulated me." "As I recall that was the only way to get you to do anything," she observed lightly, paying her bill. "I'm proud of you, Jim. Don't screw it up." He kisses her cheek. "Awesome pep-talk, Mom." "Yay team," she replies and walks out.

Okay, so his mom is kind of awesome. Chapel tells him that now that her fianc's dead she's more determined than "Your place?" he asks Spock. ever to go into the sky, if he'll have her. "If you wish," Spock agrees. And that's what's freaking him out more than anything else: the assumption "Brian! All yours again," Jim shouts, jumping over the bar. that even though he provoked Spock into a rage blackout they all assume that the admiralty will give Jim the Enterprise. The paparazzi flash photos of him and Spock leaving the bar together. "Yeah, of course- I mean, if they give me the ship," he says. She smiles at him, and then at Bones, who nods solemnly at her. "Uhura and I are in a long-term hotel suite," she says as an after-thought, handing him an address and number. "If you hear anything" "Yeah, I'll let you know," he says. "No one wants to stay in that ghost-town," Bones grunts, flipping on the TV. "Can you blame them?" Jim asks. "You figured out a staff?" "Chapel as head nurse- hopefully she'll go for her doctorate so we can have her as a doctor on the team, but I think at this point we'll just be takin' the cadets who managed to survive." Jim nods. "It would be an illogical decision for the admiralty of Starfleet not to consider bequeathing the Enterprise to Captain Kirk. I can think of no one bettersuited to the job, and I will be submitting that assessment to them at tomorrow's meeting." With a nod, Spock departs the cluster of media who shout after him. "You haven't seen him in a while," Bones observes. "We've been on Earth a week." "Yeah, and remind me again why you haven't gone to see your daughter?" "You know," Bones says, getting up and ordering a ticket to Jim's utter shock, "you're right. I don't have to be here, I've got my team assigned, and no one's changin' my status as CMO on the ship." "Really?" "Yeah. Goin' into space, might as well go see her and the goddamn shrew." He stops and looks at Jim. "You're gonna get it, you realize. But you gotta talk to the green-blooded hobgoblin, because five years of the two of you drivin' each other to the edge will make us all commit harakiri." "Shut up, Bones." And then Jim realizes that no where in any of the interviews has Spock ever mentioned that he's joining the crew of the Enterprise. His mother visits, which is bizarre, and Sam sends congratulations. "Your father would be proud," she says. She looks around the bar, watches Spock walk in. "I would cite regulations," she remarks with a wry smile, "but I don't suspect either of you will be walking around pregnantly flouting the no fraternization rules of officers." It doesn't get better when they get to Spock's. "I have not yet made my decision," Spock admits. Jim gapes at him. This is one of those moments he should probably think back to the list that Uhura gave him of acceptable phrases and responses, color-coded for ease of understanding and use. "You've what?" "My race is endangered, logic dictates that- " "Spock, sperm donation." "- I must assist in the cultural rebuilding of my people- " "I can't do this without you, you know we- " "- my wife was among the casualties- " "- work well togetherwait, what? What wife you never- " "- and it is likely that you could take another first officer from a- " "- I don't want to take another first officer, goddamn it, Spock- " "- wide pool of applicants- " "- Spock!- " They both break off, looking at each other. "This is neither an affirmation nor a rejection," Spock says. "If this is about the bridge- " "Jim. It's not about that, it was a logical decision given the circumstances, I do not- " "You sent me to Hoth." "Also a logical decision," Spock maintained, and there was a flicker of amusement. "Jim. I will let you know first." Jim grips his shoulders. "Spock. You- " Spock leans in and kisses him, and Jim lets himself be distracted, pressed against Spock's bed with the sudden realization it's been almost two weeks since they've been even close to each other in the madness since Nero. "Don't leave me," he mouths against Spock's skin, too afraid to say it out loud. Spock has responsibilities, but he chose Starfleet once, and there's a chance (65.039%) that he'll choose it again. Jim does the math into Spock's skin, clenching against him with fingernails biting into Spock's shoulders.

They don't speak, and after, Jim leaves. "Captain Kirk?" She's very blond, probably 19, pretty, and very cheerful. Oh, and it's seven am. "Goddamn it, Jim," Bones grunts from the sofa bed. "I- yeah?" he says, blinking. "Janice Rand, I'm assigned to the Enterprise? Yeoman, I'll be working for you." She sticks out a very enthusiastic hand. Jim stares at her. "I- what?" She doesn't flag. "Captain Pike and Admiral Archer sent me over to get you tell your senior staff that there's a meeting scheduled for tomorrow at 1300 hours. Captain Pike instructed me to tell you to make sure that the "Scottish one""- she actually uses air quotes- "isn't drunk. Well, I can see you're very busy, have a great day! I look forward to working with you!" She gives him a perky salute, and then struts off down the hall. Jim looks at Bones over his shoulder. "I am not going to enjoy this at all." "Shouldn't have saved the world," Bones mutters, and then he's fast asleep again. "They assigned me a perky blonde," he tells Spock, sitting in his office. Jim is slowly but surely co-opting it. Stealth campaign. "As yeoman." "Unusual, but given the slightness of choice" "She showed up," Jim informs him, "at seven in the morning." "I imagine Dr. McCoy was perturbed by that." Jim snorts. "Yeah." He does a lot of math, these days. Stupid problems, but calculations, too. Likelihood of failure. Likelihood of failure with and without Spock. Those calculations make him feel sick, but he can't stop doing them. A few times he thinks about contacting Ambassador Spock. As time for departure draws closer he finally does. "You have to talk to him- you- him," he says. "He's convinced he has to go back and I- " "You cannot do it without him," Ambassador Spock says without a trace of self-consciousness. "You must convince him- your destinies are entwined." Jim thinks of nights of quiet blow jobs and fucking- the words that he can't say stuck in his throat and the fear that Spock is somewhere elsesomewhere not-with-him- ever present. The realization that he can't bludgeon Spock into this is terrifying. He also thinks, uncharitably, that clearly Ambassador Spock was never so goddamn stubborn as Jim's Spock. "I can't," he says softly.

Helmsman, and Lt. Arnold Carlisle as Armory Officer in charge of security personnel. Positions for chief science officer and first mate are yet to be filled." Pike looks at him. "I would have thought you would have approached Commander Spock." "I have. He's playing hard to get," Jim replies. Then, as an afterthought, "Sir." Pike's lips twitch. They're leaving in two days. Two days, and Jim still doesn't have a first mate. He's going to take Keenser on at this point. Uhura could probably function as science officer, or he could transfer Chekov to science officer- maybe Lt. Tormolen, but that guy is so accident-prone he'd probably be more of a hazard than trusting the entire Science division to a seventeen year old. "You could ask Dr. McCoy," Rand offers, biting on her pen. "Or Chapel. OrRodriguez. I mean, he's a botanist but" "I don't want to take away medical personnel if I can help it," Jim says. "I'm also not big on Rodriguez. I mean, he's a decent guy, just a littleflaky." She nods, looking over personnel again. She's grown on him. "Well," she muses. "I guess you just have to convince Commander Spock." "Isn't it great how it keeps coming back to that?" he mutters. She just grins at him. "Mira," is Scotty's suggestion. He was besotted. "She's a Lieutenant, y'know?" She's not a bad choice, and besides looking a little nervous, she agrees to the post of interim Science officer if none can be found. Jim realizes that his ship's composition of high-ranking officials is entirely Human and groans. "No one will care," Uhura says when he tells her. "It's not a bias anywhere at all- most Vulcans have resigned their commissions, and- well. The fact that most of us are Earth-strain Humans can't really be helped. It's the best and the brightest right now." She squeezes his hand. "Don't be so sensitive." He makes a face at her. "Thanks." Bones doesn't care about Jim's recruiting problems, because he's trying to get Geoffrey M'Benga to join the crew. Apparently M'Benga studied at the Vulcan Academy. Bones does care when he comes back to the apartment to find that Jim is proving the Adlorian Theorum all over their walls, because he ran out of paper. "My God, man," he sighs. "Pull yourself together." He makes dinner anyway, because he knows that sometimes the only way for Jim to quiet the other really terrifying numbers in Jim's head is for Jim to work with other, less terrifying numbers. Calculating their chances for failure and death will make him go crazy.

Uhura, Scotty, Bones, Chekov, and Sulu, Arnold Carlisle and Jim are the only ones who show to the meeting. Jim's still not accepting anyone but Spock as first mate and science officers aren't growing on trees. There were "You have to come," he says to Spock. "You're the one who dragged me into Starfleet, you're the one who made me a captain- this whole damn thing few enough of them as it was- and there are four or five who are ready to isyour fault. So you have to be my first officer because- you owe me. " head an exploratory expedition. Spock kisses him gently. "Present your crew," Admiral Archer instructs. "Lt. Nyota Uhura as head of communications," he says. "Dr. Leonard McCoy as Chief Medical Officer, Montgomery Scott, Chief Engineering Officer, Pavel Chekov, Head of Navigation, and Lt. Hiraku Sulu as Primary "You needed only a push, and I regret none of it," he informs him. "Jim. You do not need me."

"I do. We all do. Spock. Imagine what I'll do without you- " "You believe too much of your own negative press." Okay, fine, so some enterprising reporter had gotten ahold of his psych evaluations and the headlines have been "SOCIOPATH TO CAPTAIN THE ENTERPRISE?". Whatever. Someone does a poll of Federation planets: Jim has a 87% approval rating. He buries himself in the numerical break down of the polls for a while to steady his nerves. Spock walks onto the ship, literally right before they're about to take off. If it were anyone but Spock Jim would say it was making a grand entrance. "Lt. Romaine, you're relieved as Chief Science Officer," he says as they glide into unknown space. "Commander Spock will be taking over the position."

Almost all other Vulcan members of Starfleet have resigned- those who were not lost to Nero's rage. And thinking on it makes Spock want to hunt down any other who might presume to effect genocide on an entire planet. He wants- wants to go to the Neutral Zone and ensure that the Romulans are not emboldened. Perhaps Jim has had an adverse effect upon him- perhaps he is merely feeling more Human. He wants to go into space, because there is a part of him that identifies with a struggling bartender for whom the world was simply not big enough. What he wants is irrelevant. The good of many must outweigh the desires of the one: and Spock's desires are simple: protect the Federation, protect EarthStay with Jim.

Spock rests a hand on one of the shuttles, cool and inert. Jim. Even as Spock had shoved him, pressed him to be more than a bartender, he had not foreseen how effective Jim would truly be. How ruthless. How perfect. Spock lifts an eyebrow in agreement, sitting in his position as Uhura grins at Perhaps he allowed himself to get too close, though that conjecture ignores the fact that the pull of Jim Kirk's personality rivals that of a black hole. Jim them all as though they're dense children who've managed to color inside the lines. Bones rolls his eyes and mutters something about updating his VD Kirk, for all intents and purposes, is red matter. vaccine supplies at the first stopover. He frowns through the frozen hydrogen- he had been under the impression that his father was at the embassy, speaking with the current Vulcan They have a serious conversation about that that night. ambassador to Earth. "Father," he calls. Perhaps he may again lean upon Well. Conversation. his father's wisdom as he once did as a child. Jim attempts to tell Spock what an asshole he is while Spock does his level "I am not our father." He turns, and Spock sees some of his own face in the best to suck Jim's brain out of his dick. older, weary Vulcan. "There are so few Vulcans left we cannot afford to avoid each other." "You calculated the odds of my accepting." "After Ambassador Spock I put them at 98%," Jim gasps, bereft at the sudden lack of suction. "That was cheating." Jim grins, spreading his arms. "Don't worry," he says. "I'll teach you." Win for Losing waldorph Summary: Spock's been played. He doesn't mind too much Notes: Written for merisunshine36. Work Text: Even before this, Jim had drawn away, as though mentally preparing himself for the separation, and while that would mark a growth of character, he has also refused to appoint a second in command. For such an assertive man he can be surprisingly passive-aggressive. "You are the mind which melded with his." Spock had sensed it- an intrusion in the pattern of Jim's mind, memories which he could not possibly have; images of himself older. Unaware of where it came from, Spock had chosen to ignore it, but it is a relief, he supposes. To know that it was merely himself. It ought to worry him how possessive he is. The other man looks briefly surprised. "Yes. I had not been aware you could detect it." He pauses, searching his own mind for residuals he may have gleaned from his meld with Kirk. He looks surprised. "It took us many years to reach what you have accomplished." "The trajectory of this universe is somewhat altered from your own. I am curious- how did you persuade him to keep your secret?" "He inferred that universe-ending paradoxes would ensue should he break his promise." "You lied." Spock cannot countenance it- Vulcans do not lie. Manipulate, perhaps. "Ohhh. I I implied." He shrugs philosophically. "A gamble." It opens realms of possibilities in how to most effectively manage Jim.

To say Spock is conflicted is an understatement. He feels very strongly drawn to Earth, as it is the only true home he has left, and the people with Which is irrelevant, because Jim is leaving for uncharted space for five whom he is closest are Earth Humans; the people who experienced the loss years in approximately seven hours. of Vulcan as closely as he did, who fought for their own planet. His mother "An act of faith. One I hope that you will repeat in the future with Starfleet." was Human. "In the face of extinction it is only logical that I resign my Starfleet Jim is Human. commission and help rebuild our race." It would be enough. "And yet you can be in two places at once. I urge you to remain at Starfleet. And yet there will be a new colony: New Vulcan. Jim is correct in pointing I've already located a suitable planet on which to establish a Vulcan colony. out that Spock could make a biological contribution to repopulation via the Spock, in this case do yourself a favor. Put aside logic: do what feels right." donation of sperm, but that seems distant. Spock considers it: his older self has far greater knowledge than he, has the There will be much to rebuild: school systems, infrastructure, old customssame genetics. He could take a wife and contribute, Spock himself might they will have to draw upon their shared knowledge and experiences in still contribute genetic material- it is permission, release; logical. Two of order to fashion the new colony into a functioning replication of Vulcan. them would be superfluous.

"Since my customary farewell would appear oddly self-serving, I shall simply Mom calls him Sam, probably because it- hurts too much to call him say: good luck." George. Later in life, Sam will insist on using Dad's name, but he's Sam to Jim and their Mom and to everyone they grew up with, (and to the entire Spock lifts his hand, watching his older counterpart walk through the 400-person crew of the Enterprise) George will always be "Sam". hanger, and then turns, walking back to Starfleet. Sam is a good kid, interested in science- biology, not astrophysics like Jim "I wish to apply for the position of First Mate on the USS Enterprise," he (secretly) is. He's not quite as smart as Jim, not quite as fast- and he informs now-Admiral Pike. remembers Dad. "Oh thank God," Pike exhales, relief writ large in his face. "Cancel the And sometimes, when Jim is being particularly annoying, Sam will shout, emergency appointment of Brenson," he snaps into his comm. Spock lifts an eyebrow. "The admiralty took it upon themselves to appoint someone to "Dad would have totally hated you!" "manage" Jim." And Jim thinks that Dad died on his birthday, and that maybe that could be true. "Logical, but a flawed plan." "You think so?" Pike demands, leaning back in his chair. As it is a rhetorical And his mom always manages to be offworld on his birthday, so maybe Sam's right- maybe somehow it was his fault. question, Spock does not reply. "You're really cutting this to the wire, Spock." He sends her a sniffling message in whatever sector she's in, telling her that "Unforeseen circumstances have arisen, allowing me to join the crew of the he's sorry, so sorry- and he'll leave, and it will be okay. Enterprise," he replies. "Now, if you would commission me a shuttle to take me to the docking station, I would be most appreciative." He waits until Grandma and Grandpa Kirk are asleep and Sam is snoring lightly before he runs away.

Jim's face, when he offers character references, is amused; his expression as they launch out is smug, which makes Spock suspect the advantageous timing of his encounter with his counterpart. Jim promises to teach him to cheat when they both come off of Alpha shift (Yeoman Rand is cheerfully adding Spock to the duty roster)- Spock thinks back to his enrolling Jim into Starfleet, of the Kobayashi Maru, of their conflicts aboard this very ship and thinks that perhaps he already knows how to cheat. For a Hundred Visions and Revisions Summary: Winona? Kind of awesome (or, "How Jim Kirk Wouldn't Have Survived A Normal Mother"). 1. Winona Kirk takes a leave of absence from active Starfleet duty until Jim is three, and then for four years she only goes into space for 4 months of the 12. She takes up diplomatic missions, becomes Ambassador Kirk. Specializes in Romulan/Federation relations, is hard as nails, and can drink a Romulan under the table. She and Jim sit on her bed while Sam is at school and they watch old 20th century movies. Mom loves Star Wars, and when Jim is asked to describe her ("what's your mom like?") Jim always remembers Leia telling Luke about their mother. "She was very beautiful, kind but sad." His mom is very beautiful, but sad. But she's alive, and she didn't marry Darth Vader. Which makes her awesome. Also, his mom is only sad sometimes- and instead of kind she's more kickass. Winona Kirk, when confronted, always takes full responsibility for the fact that her youngest son's conversations are peppered with references to two and three hundred year old movies. She thinks it's hilarious.

It's March, in Iowa- the snow is a foot deep, and he's miserable and sobbing and he's five when he thinks that maybe he should never have been born. He wakes up in a hospital with his mother's hand warm on his forehead, snarling at his grandparents. He turns his head, and Sam stares at him and says, "I'm so sorry- I was mad, I was- Jim," and he sounds so scared, and he's Jim's big brother and Jim knows he was almost dead (odds of survival: 17%- Jim would do the math later), and that Sam would have been sorry. There is a hot, ugly feeling of good, serves you right that Jim can't quite ever manage to feel guilty about. His mom stays for the next eight months, and they live in the house she and Dad picked out like a real family. She gives him pained looks, and then she tells him the story about his birth- about how it wasn't his fault, not even a little. She gets married to Frank Hallie, and Sam loves him. Jim hates him, but his mom stays on Earth for the rest of the year until there's some emergency. 3. "You drove the car," she says slowly. "Off the gorge." "Pretty much." "You got arrested, and Frank didn't bail you out, so you hacked the jail." "Yes." She looks at him, and his stomach twists itself into double helixes (Mr. Greenville has him in the advanced maths class). The silence stretches out. Jim's read about harakiri. How bad could that be- the Operative in Serenity said there was no shame in that death. Jim has got to stop watching those movies. He's nine. It's time to watchwell, nothing, because the political correctness movement is hardcore making it impossible to make a movie. The classics are the only ones with anyanything. "I calculated the odds of survival," he lies. Well, he did. Justafter the fact. 8%. He shouldn't be here, having this conversation.

When he's nine he writes her that he was "feeling a little John Connor today. Are you Sarah?" From that day on she always signs her messages "Mother "What were they?" of the Future of Mankind". "87%." Sam is always getting the praise and her smiles, but Jim gets her jokes"Liar." he's okay with that. And then her face twists, and she laughs. And laughs and laughs and 2. laughs. She calls Frank and smoothes things over, buys him a new classic His brother's name is technically George. He is George Samuel Kirk- but

car. Calls the school and gets Jim enrolled in after-curricular activities, like the math club. "You're such a shit," she sighs when he tells her that he's fairly sure Frank only uses 1/10% of his allotted 10% of his brain. He grins. 4. When he's 12 he's itching to get out. Out. Kodos has 8,000 people, and he came to dinner that one time because Mom was on some council or something so Jim begs her to let him go. "I'll kill Frank in his sleep," he warns. Then, considering, "he might kill me in my sleep. You wouldn't want that on your conscience." She yields.

terrified, so angry, hiding in shadows and wearing his sleeves too long to hide the burns from the wiring. And then Kodos finds him. He hits him again and again, raging and spitting in Jim's face that he'd been like a son to him, wrapping his hands around Jim's throat and squeezing. And then he just- slams against Jim, hard, knocking them both into the wall, and Jim kicks Kodos off, staring because "Mom," Jim manages around his bruised throat. "Mom." She sits with him, strokes his hair as he sobs into her lap. After four minutes she jostles her thigh and says, "Here, take this." He wraps his hand around the phaser. "It's set to disintegrate and kill," she says. "Shoot anyone who comes at you who isn't Starfleet."

Later, with a solar blanket wrapped around his shoulders after being treated Kodos is amazing. His wife and he are trying for a kid desperately, but they and talking to Sam, who was freaking out, he watches her direct the love Jim. Kodos shows Jim old, obscure math theories and lets him read the evacuation, effortlessly speaking over senior Starfleet personnel. books all the time. He takes him out onto Tarsus IV and shows him how to On the shuttle ride back to Earth she never asks him if he's okay. When he establish a colony, how the people are thriving. asks her how she knew something was wrong she says, "I called you And then there is a plant virus that wipes out 60% of the crop yield. Rodney McKay and you didn't respond in all caps. Something was up." They won't have enough food to get to the next Starfleet check-in. He leans his head against the shuttle window and thinks that he might be able to smile. She's kind of ridiculous. Jim calculates the odds: they'll all starve to death. He can fix this: he's a genius, Kodos keeps assuring him and Jimhe wants to help. 5. To save them- and Kodos wants to fix this so desperately. He graduates from high school at 15, and emancipates himself. Gets odd Jim works hard on how to stretch the food, but the thing isold people are a jobs around Riverside. Moves out of Frank's house- Sam's long gone. problem. Old people, people with mental or physical diseases- people who She finds him in a bar, scribbling out equation after equation. Millennium don't function at maximum capacity are burdens on the system. problems- some solved, some unsolved- some solved by him. Their right to full and happy lives, Jim doesn't dispute. It's just- the math She watches him quietly, hands him water and an aspirin, and gets her says they should go. lawyers to give him his portion of Dad's life insurance policy early. He hides it carefully away, and says he didn't find anything. He has hazy memories of her doing that a lot when he's still so fucked up. Ages 15-22 were bad years. He always has condoms, and self-check Then people start disappearing, and Kodos starts making speeches about tests for VDs and"the good of the population" and "this is the best solution" and Jim realizes that he found the math. His rap sheet is longer than their driveway at this point, and he punches his grandfather and tries to punch her. Kodos implements a eugenics program. Jim tries to hack the communications system- get a word out to someone, anyone, but it's not Every month she sends him a new movie. shut down: it's destroyed. One year it was all Julia Roberts: Notting Hill, Pretty Woman, Mystic Pizza, "They are not coming to help us, Jim," Kodos says, and Jim is thirteen and My Best Friend's Wedding, America's Sweethearts, Runaway Bride, he knows a crazy motherfucker when he sees one. "You and I, we are Stepmom, Erin Brokovich, Conspiracy Theory, Hook, The Pelican Brief, and strong, we must survive to lead them," he continues, cupping Jim's cheeks. Steel Magnolias. His breath is horrible, and too close. "I do not do this lightly." He'll never forgive her for that. "There are other- " he breaks off when Kodos hits him. He hates Good Will Hunting- when the fuck would that ever happen in real "There are not!" he thunders, his fingers biting into Jim's biceps. "Do not life? And A Beautiful Mind makes him want to scream. make me regret sparing you, Jim." He watches them, though. Doesn't even skip forward. Sometimes, if he In The Princess Bride Westley said Dread Pirate Roberts said every night, wakes up with no idea what he's watched? He watches them again. "Good night, Westley. Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning." 7. Westley never seemed to believe it. "I have been stranded on Hoth by a Vulcan. FML." He sends it while waiting Jim does- even though he's one of the best candidates for survival, for the for Scotty to fix things, with Keenser moving alongside him and tidying survival of the colony, this has become personal for Kodos. His fear- his whatever Scotty's fixed. guilt- make him dangerous. "Does that make you Han or Luke?" she replies a few minutes later. The math doesn't lie, and the math says they'll all be dead in two years Jim likes to think he's Han, but he's totally Luke, and Spock- other, older (probability: 94% positive). Spock- is Han fucking Solo. But the math doesn't matter. It's - what the fuck is the point of it? Half the Jim hates his life. population who came here with such fucking hopes are dead, and Jim ispissed. 8. "Your father would be proud," she says. She looks around the bar, watches So he can't hack anything to do with communications: he sabotages the Spock walk in. "I would cite regulations," she remarks with a wry smile, "but vaporization chambers. They stop functioning, and he stops sleeping, so I don't suspect either of you will be walking around pregnantly flouting the no fraternization rules of officers."

He leans against the bar, grinning slightly. "Probably not." His mother is a tough subject for him- she wasn't ever there, but they never had a rough relationship. She was always easy to be around, not like the other moms but somehow cooler. She drinks her beer and nods to Spock. "Hear you're the one who got Jim to join," she says. "I - " "He manipulated me." "As I recall that was the only way to get you to do anything," she observed lightly, paying her bill. "I'm proud of you, Jim. Don't screw it up." He kisses her cheek. "Awesome pep-talk, Mom." "Yay team," she replies and walks out. Okay, so his mom is kind of awesome. 9. She comes to the ceremony. She looks around at the hallway like she can see the ghosts; hear the echoes of feet that will never run down the halls again. She doesn't say anything, just sits there, beside him, as he realizes how many people he's never going to see again- how many people they didn't save. And when it slams home and he sobs in great shuddering sobs, she just puts her hand in his hair, and waits for him to finish. "You don't let it define you," she says to the question he doesn't have to ask. "You let it shape you, and you're changed by it- you'll never be the same. But it doesn't define you." The reason they get on so well- the reason that Jim is still here, is that- she just gets it. She's nothing like other mothers, but Jim doesn't think he'd've made it past 5 if he'd had anyone else. 10. The thing is, she likes both Spocks. She thinks it's kind of hilarious, but she likes them both. She and Bones get on like a house on fire. Summary:

Cinderella's Wicked Stepmother Frank Hallie never set out to be the villain of the story. 1. He knew George and Winona when they were all kids together. Winona was the kind of girl every guy wanted to be with, but most guys couldn't quite work up the nerve to talk to her. Winona was like an ionic storm; fierce and damaging but goddamn, she was beautiful. George was like lazy summer days when it's so hot all you want to do is curl up on the porch with lemonade and a book with actual binding. She'd start complaining about something and he'd look at her, grin, and say, "Yeah, sure." She'd bite her lip and roll her eyes and try damn hard not to smile. Frank never stood a chance, not really. George and Winona were this epic romance. But he was George's friend, and she seemed to like him well enough, and Frank was all right getting what he could. They went off to Starfleet, and he lost touch with them both. Not much sense in keeping in touch when you're off building the Federation- what would he tell them about, anyway? Crop yields? Riverside's a quiet, lazy town, and Iowa never changes. Frank takes over the family farm, and he does- pretty damn well, actually. Helps he gets into the stock market. It's just lucky when he ends up getting 80 credits on the 1 for some obscure company nobody's heard of- stocks go through the roof when they work out some sort of bonding system. He's not sure on the details. Never had a head for math- never had a head for space. Likes the dirt under his nails, the feeling of a hard day's work. Takin' care of the animals. Might be rustic, but there's nothing wrong with rustic. 2. Winona and George buy the old Connor house. It's too big for them and the kid they're expecting, but they're flush with more money than Frank's got.

Jim thinks it's hilarious that Spock, who's so Vulcan in his interaction with the world (which, you know, okay, logical, give that he's been raised He sits at their kitchen table and watches Winona navigate around her baby Vulcan), doesn't know what to do with Winona Kirk's brusque way of dealing bump like it's not even there. with the universe. He sees her at the open market- replicators are great, but you can't beat "So we're all going to die. Drinks?" she asks as the asteroid, which has home-grown tomatoes- and the other mothers and women swarm. them in its gravitational pull, hurtles towards them. They want to touch the bump. Scotty hands her the home brew. Jim rolls his eyes. "We're not going to Winona Kirk glares at them all so hard Frank's almost afraid they'll burst into die." flame, and as he gasps for breath around his laughter he realizes he's still There's a 47.904% chance they will. But that's practically perfect odds, carrying quite the torch. given what Jim's been up against before. They name the kid George Samuel Kirk. Instead of fond smiles and tactile moments and gentle understanding, Jim's He's a cute kid- Frank sees him as he's growin' up because he delivers mom is phasers and swearing and drinking in the face of death- she's old produce to Mr & Mrs Kirk Sr., who watch him while his parents are out in the movies and bad pep-talks and really actually terrible parenting skills and black. completely shit taste in men (after Dad). He's bright and he's got George's honey-warm personality, curious and The asteroid vaporizes and Chekov slumps in his chair as Sulu dips his good with his hands. head and exhales. Jim swivels the chair to grin at Spock, whose eyebrow tilts a grin back. 3. News comes around that Winona's expecting again when George Jr is "I love this ship," his mom decides. three. He'll be four when his little sibling is born, and sometimes Frank can't Scotty gazes at her in rapturous adoration. escape Mr and Mrs Kirk's because George has all these ideas about what a younger sibling'll be like. He can't wait to be a big brother- Frank figures he'll Jim's going to have to do something about that. be pretty awesome at it if this is his attitude going in. "Awesome, Mom," he sighs. "Chekov, get us back on course- Sulu, warp And then George is dead. factor 2."

George is dead, and Winona is coming back in with red-rimmed eyes and an infant. She locks herself into the house with her boys and doesn't let anyone in come hell or high water. George Jr is suddenly "Sam", and he hears through word of mouth that the baby is a boy, and his name is James- Jim. After his maternal grandfather, with Tiberius as a middle name.

want to hit him. He's not- he's not that guy. Jim's not his kid, but he's his step-kid and his responsibility, and sometimes Frank even likes him in spite of himself- and he loves Sam. But Jim just drives him right off the edge of reason- the car was a goddamn metaphor, alright? The car is Frank, the ground is his patience, and there's Jim, with his foot to the floor, running right off the cliff.

Starfleet personnel cruise in and out, and Winona stands on the porch of the It doesn't help that one day Frank finds him in all the bills and Frank's stock house and stares them down, hair pulled back at the nape of her neck and portfolio, frowning at the numbers and then, with disdain no 8 year old Jim in her arms with Geor- Sam behind her legs. should muster with their stepfather, Jim Kirk informs him that he's being cheated, that there are 20,000 credits missing over the course of seven For four months of every year for the next five, she goes back out into years, and maybe he wants to call his broker. space, undoubtedly kicking ass and taking names. The kids stay with their grandparents, and Frank visits just like he's been doing for almost the past decade. Sam is still the best kid he's ever known, but JimJim Kirk is a kid with severe impulse control issues and the kind of belief in his own invincibility that'll get him killed, except it never does. He's smart as hell, smarter than any kid Frank's ever known, and he's always going. He never shuts up, always asking why and getting so, so angry when everyone runs out of answers. He spends a lot of time crying and sulking from ages 2-4. When he's five he runs away, and almost kills himself. No one will ever convince Frank that that wasn't a five year old trying to commit suicide. Not after he finds out later that Jim sent Winona a goodbye. Frank finds Jim collapsed in the snow, sound asleep, and very blue; too still. Winona bursts into the hospital and Frank tries to be inconspicuous while she cowers every single person in the hospital. "Can you believe them?" she demands later, just outside Jim's room, her hands wrapped around her Irish coffee. "Who doesn't lock the doors? Who doesn't make sure that the five year old can't undo the locks?" He doesn't say anything; he doesn't have to, he's just the sounding board. She just wants to yell, and Frank will let her. 4. She lets him come around to the house after that- smiles at the way he's good with Sam. She's amazing with Jim. She has answers to the questions, her Look shuts him up, and instead of taking away the sharp objects she shrugs and asks what's the worst he can do? He's not- when he asks her to marry him at the end of the year, he knows he's not George. He's not her first choice, or even her second. It's like Cinderella- the widower marries for the good of his daughter to a woman he thinks is suitable. Winona's marrying him because he's good with her kids, and he's comfortable, knew her from before; knew George. They're not going to start any wildfires, but he's okay with that. He's not a wildfire kind of guy. 5. Four years later that little shit is stealing his car and driving it off a cliff, and Winona's still laughing when she calls him and buys him a new one. He doesn't know how to say that that wasn't the point- that it's the complete disrespect for him, for his things that's the problem. It's the fact that her youngest kid thinks he's so much fucking better than the rest of them- that at nine everyone in Riverside can see that Jim Kirk doesn't quite fit. Even Winona fit, back when they were kids. Jim doesn't have friends, but everyone loves him, but everyone's nervous about him- Frank doesn't know what to do with the fact that Jim makes him Frank's hands twitch, and all he wants to do is smack Jim's snide, arrogant little head. Instead he gets a beer and goes out to the barn to be with the cows. He never wants to kill cows. He just- Jim pushes buttons Frank doesn't know he has until Jim's grubby little fingers find them. And Frank can't seem to give the kid a break.

Years drag on and he doesn't want to, so much. Jim has daddy issues a mile wide, because everyone compares him to his father, because his birthday is the day his dad died- and the way it translates is that Jim hates Frank because he's not George, and Frank hates that because there's not a fucking thing he can do about it. Jim, who hates being held to his father's image for comparison, is holding Frank to that exact standard. 6. Jim begs Winona to go away to Tarsus IV- another way he's different from Sam, from Frank. Sam's curious about a lot of stuff, but he's a steadier kid at 16. Jim is a goddamn misery of a 12 year old. Frank isn't a bit sorry to see him go. That doesn't mean that he would have ever, ever wished what happened on Tarsus on the kid. Not- Jesus. No. But that doesn't- he has a really awful moment where he thinks, Great, now he'll be worse. And it's uncharitable, and he should be more accommodating, but Winona has to go deal with the fallout, and Jim is 13 and psychotically angry at everything. 7. Frank doesn't remember what happened the first time he actually hit Jim. Jim was 14, he remembers that, and Sam had left for university already, and Jim was running his goddamn mouth and Frank had realized that he wastrapped with this kid who looked more and more like George as the days went by but was more and more like all the worst parts of both his parents. He was drunk. He remembers that- well. Those days he was always drunk, because the blissful numb was the only way he could keep his hands from wrapping around Jim's neck. Jim stares at him from the floor, gets up, and slams the door. He never crosses Frank's doorstep again. Winona sends him the divorce papers, ignores his attempts to plead with her. Beg her forgiveness. "Winona!" he pleads. "Please- just- " "You're lucky he didn't empty your bank account," she remarks. Then she looks him dead in the eyes. "The last guy who hit my kid ended up dead, Frank. You're fucking lucky." When he checks his account there's about 20,000 credits missing. That little asshole. The worst of it is that he loses everything- not just the house he's felt like was his home. He's not a psuedo-father anymore, or Winona's husband, but he's just Frank Hallie, and he's not- it's possible that he doesn't know who that is without the Kirks to orbit around.

Sam stops sending cards, and Frank is left to pick up the pieces of his life, realizing that it wasn't ever his life- that for the past decade- forget that, for the majority of his life he hasn't even been the main character. 8. Sometimes Bob or Ted will remark that Jim's arrested for disorderly conduct, lewd and lacivious behavior, grand theft auto, assault, assault with a deadly weapon- it goes on for years, and Frank snorts and says he could have told them so, and then the stories stop. Jim is justgone. Frank doesn't hear about Jim Kirk again until he's saving the world. He watches the TV slack-jawed as Jim Kirk comes off a shuttle with a Vulcan right beside him, looks into the cameras, and smiles faintly at them, nodding perfunctorily before heading straight for the Starfleet officials. He's given the fleet's flagship, and Frank wants to scream that this kid? This kid is unstable, will fuck them all over. Will destroy them all. 9. He meets Jim again two years after that. Winona never sold the Connor house, but Mr and Mrs Kirk had hinted she was considering it, so when he sees a man walking up the walk he calls out to him, thinking he might be a prospective buyer. He has to call twice, and when the guy turns Frank has a minute of thinking it's George. But it's not, it's Jim. Jim, older and somehow calmer, like all that wild energy he'd never been able to control was coiled, waiting for an excuse to be unleashed. It crackles in his eyes. "Jim," he says, fighting to keep his voice level, damning the decision to be nosy- should have left well enough goddamn alone! "Didn't know you were staying here," he adds, because he can be civil, damnit. Because they're both grown men, and he's not going to give this smug bastard the satisfaction of seeing him riled. "Yeah," Jim agrees. "Jim, have you acquired the- hello. I do not believe we have been introduced." "I'm- " "Spock, this is Frank," Jim tells the Vulcan, and Frank notes the way the Vulcan's shoulder presses against the back of Jim's in an expression of solidarity. Huh. And then he finds himself on the receiving end of a piercing stare, and it's not like Jim's just told this Spock character stories, it's like Spock knowshim. Weighs him and finds him wanting.

Name Not His Own waldorph Summary: His name is George Samuel Kirk. And he's the only person in his family who has his shit together. 1. He's named after his father. Every single name he has isn't his ownpre-used, worn in around someone else's life: George Samuel Kirk (Jr). He thinks if Dad had lived, maybe it wouldn't have mattered, and he thinks sometimes that if Dad were alive he would have had to have been more like Sam; he and Dad trying to mitigate and manage Jim and Mom. He feels like only one half of a teama basketball without a net, and it makes him selfsufficient. His name isn't his own, so it doesn't bother him like Grandaddy thinks it should when Mom starts calling him "Sam" (Dad was never "Sam" he was always George), because it's like she's giving Sam a bit of himself back: giving him an identity to create, not fill in the edges of a preconstructed one. He won't think that until he's much older, of course he's four at the time, and not Jim. 2. When he's nine, he almost kills his brother. Jim is annoying. Jim is a fucking annoying kid, and so Sam says something stupid, about how Dad wouldn't have liked himhe doesn't even know what he's saying, just knows he's so so so angry, and Dad is the one weapon he's got against Jim, because Jim doesn't care that Grandmommy and Grandaddy like him better (probably because the world adores Jim everyone who doesn't know him; everyone who doesn't have to spend actual time with him adores him). Jim runs away, and Sam can't find him. Frantic, he wakes his grandparents up, and the whole town turns out the search party when they find him he's by the creek, and so so still. Frank picks him up, wraps him in his own coat, and takes him to the hospital, and Sam wants to hold onto Frank's hand and cry a little. He doesn't. He's George Samuel Kirk. When Mom comes she's not angry at him, she's angry at their grandparents. Angry doesn't even cover it. Jim forgives Sam, but something in his face makes Sam feel as cold as if he'd been the one out in the snow for hours.

"Well. I'll let you boys enjoy your evening," he manages, heading back down He forgets that, though, because Mom stays home. Jim's less annoying because she's there, and Sam can come home and tell her everything the lane as fast as he can go without running. about his day about how they're studying Vulcan and Human comparative He doesn't sleep well that night. biology in his advanced class how they're going to look at Romulan versus Vulcan biology next. She listens, asks questions, and Sam feels at 10. home for the first time in a really long time. At some point, another decade or so on when Jim comes to spend every other of his yearly R&R at the Connor house (always with Spock in tow), Jim He's the best man when she marries Frank. He likes Frank Frank teaches doesn't seem to see him. Like Frank doesn't register at all, and it's not right him carpentry and explains sex (and not in a gross way, but in a matter-ofbecause Frank can feel the air shift whenever any of that particular strand of fact way, because Frank is a farmer, and they are very matter-of-fact the Kirk family is around. most of Iowa is very matter-of-fact). It's unfair that he's still so affected by them all, when they clearly don't give a Frank makes Mom smile, and he reads to Sam at night before bed. shit about him. Maybe it should be a release- permission to move on, or Sam remembers what it was like to be family, and he thinks this could be it. something. He doesn't. And every other year when a shiny phallic hovercraft glides into town his blood boils, his fists clench, and he's stuck- the wicked stepmother in the fairytale. 3. Jim and Frank don't get along, and Sam's not sure how to fix that. It's not his job, he knows, but it bugs him, sometimes. And sometimes, because he's four years older and four years ahead of Jim (chronologically, anyway), he looks to 18 and thinks, so close, so close, so close.

It's still five years away. But the alternative is Well. Mom's gone a lot, and it's not family, not like he remembers it; not like the holovids remind him of how it was. Like when Jim drives the corvette over the cliff and almost kills himself. Frank is so angry, so pissed off, and Sam gets thathe does, but Jim almost drove himself over the cliff. Johnny Travers says that Jim was doing at least 90. "You've got to stop it," Sam tells Jim as Jim pretends to be asleep in his bed. Sam reaches out and grabs his shoulder, shaking him hard. "Jim. You've got to knock it off!" "Fuck you," Jim snarls. Sam's not sure why Jim's so angry, so so so angry, but it pisses him off. If Jim wants to be a little bitch, you know what? That's not Sam's problem. Sam tries, but he's tired of teachers looking at him desperately when Jim's too smart; when classmates get confused and scared or enthralled because even at eleven Jim is such a draw for people And then sometimes sometimes when Jim is in his room, doing math problems into the wee hours of the night, Sam will sit next to him and watch the numbers spill from Jim's brain to his hand to the paper and think that the problem is that Jim is just too much that he's a supernova in a marble; too big for the space he's in.

"Jim!" he shouts down the line when he finally gets a connection to Jim's comm. "Jim! Oh my god, Jim" "'M okay," Jim mumbles, and Sam curls around the comm in the back of the taxi. "You are not," Sam snaps back. This is what comes of letting your mother let your 12 year old brother to a colony and leaving him there. "Yeah, there's that," Jim agrees wearily. "Let me talk to Mom, Jim," Sam demands. "Sam." "I'll be there when you get there, I'm on my Kirk, the name is Kirk," Sam snarls at the Starfleet goon who wants to keep him off the spacestation. The goon looks confused, and Sam clenches his jaw and makes a fist. He looks like his mother, and it shows thenit mustbecause the goon lets him slide by. "Motherfuckers," Sam mutters. "I know," Mom agrees. "What the fuck?" he demands, strapping into the shuttle. "Busy now," she says as the roar of conversation grows in the background. "Talk later." Sam swears. Loud, long, and creatively.

When the transporter touches down Mom looks at him, moves towards him, but then someone's shouting for her. She's got her arm around Jim, who's And Sam's just desperately sad for him, wants to hold him close, and staring a little vacantly- dead tired, Sam would recognize that look maybe they'd be closer but Jim is defensive and learning how to be slippery, anywhere. and Sam isn't like Mom. He can't keep his grip deliberately relaxed to keep "I've got him," he says, because she's Winona fucking Kirk, and right now Jim in the palm of his hand; he squeezes too tight and Jim shoves and the galaxy needs her more than they do. They're Kirks big moments are pushes and is just the biggest fuckhead. what they do; what the rest of them do. Sam's too smart for this shit. He It'd be easier if Sam loved him less. wraps his arms around Jim and sits down right there, right in the middle of 4. the hustle and bustle. He pulls Jim against him like he's five, and they sit He's not usually this guy. He's not usually the kind of guy who goes home there for so long that Sam's body creaks and twinges and Jim grunts with with someone he sort-of knows and fucks, because well. He doesn't like effort when they finally stand. complications, and he's never sure how to act after. He's not okay with "I'm hungry," Jim decides. justleaving, and he only goes home with people he knows, so it's not "That revelation right there?" Sam says. "That's rocking my world." anonymous andwell. But he's 17 and just got accepted to the Meyer's Instutite for Biology, which is epic, and he feels like celebratingfeels a little selfish, a little entitled. Which is why he's sprawled on Chrissy Jameson's couch as her head bobs between his legs. Her roots are showing, and her gag reflex is like- super-sensitive, but she's enthusiastic and it's wet and Sam? Does not get his dick sucked often enough. When his comm goes off, he ignores it. Then Chrissy's roommate flies in and says, "Oh my god, stop and look at what happened on Tarsus!" "Which planet?" Sam is demanding, sitting up fast and dislodging Chrissy, forgetting to be embarrassed at all because oh fuck no. His dick has already lost most of its interest, hanging against his thigh as though it too dreads the number his hand reaches for the comm to see who the call is from: unknown, offplanet. Shit. "Four!" she exclaims, turning up the TV. "Governor Kodos apparently implemented an eugenics program on the colony after bad crop yeilds left it in a situation of dire emergency. Kodos is being reported dead" He comms Yellow Shuttle Cab, tucking his dick in and hailing a shuttle-taxi frantically to take him from Iowa to San Francisco to the Space Station. He's George Samuel Kirk Jr. If he wants to go the fucking space station to find his brother (because Jim is alive. Jim is alive) he will. "Shut up," Jim says, and barks a rusty, surprised laugh. Sam's blood starts flowing again. "Dude," Jim says, pained. "Your fly is open." For a few months, things are okay. Jim is awful to Frank, but Sam can get Frank to back off, and to try to push numbers at Jim. Jim goes to therapy, does his math (which Sam thinks is his real therapy), and doesn't even try to argue with Frank. And then Sam leaves for his interview with the Meyers Institute and when he gets back a week later it's like he doesn't even know. It's like the Romulans and the Klingons have descended upon the Federation; their house is a war zone. 5. Sam graduates and leaves for the Institute when he's 18. He's tired of fighting this battle. He takes the holos. He makes copies of them, leaves them in Jim's closet for him to find, but he takes the originals. He can remember Dad, vaguely. He remembers that his eyes disappeared when he smiled, and that he had really white teeth. What Sam remembers really vividly is being four and running after Dad on the docking station, begging to come with him; not to be left alone. He doesn't remember where Mom was; probably prepping something or other on the ship. He remembers Dad crouching and Sam being able to breathe in the smell of summer as he wrapped his arms around Dad's neck, holding on as tight as he could.

"Aw, George," Dad laughed. "We'll be back before you know it." Sam had sniffled, cried, "I want to come with you!" "Not this time, buddy," Dad had said, gently disengaging and kissing his forehead. "I love you." Sometimes, when he watches the holos of the three of them at the beach or on a starship he wants to reach through the particles of light and into his dad and shake him. Wants to say, "If you loved me, you wouldn't have run away from me. You wouldn't have left me." When he criesand he still does, sometimes, for everything they could haveshould have been he can smell lemonade. He hates it, now. Never drinks it; it makes him want to vomit. 6. He's 19 when he meets Aurelan"Aurie". She's beautiful and funny and smart.

Sam's research distracts himor he lets it distract him, or he's looking for a distraction, or maybe he's just decided that Jim is Jim is the kind of person who walks up to a wall with a door in it, but since the door takes him to a different room than the one he wanted to go to, he just smashes himself against the wall; expecting it to fall away and give him what he wants. Jim rages against the universe like it owes him something; like he can charm it or tame it or beat it down. Sam's Sam can't live his life being terrified of either outcome. He won't. He gives Jim money for his birthdays and holidaysdirect deposits them, and he might be funding Jim's alcoholism, but anything else he sent Jim would just pawn, so. And it's amazing, that making his peace with Jim's absence in his life lets him open to a whole other world, filled with people who live sensibly people who don't run suicide missions, people who don't sacrifice themselves.

7. He and Aurie get married three years after he last speaks to Jim, and Jim She goes to the Woolf Institute for Literature she mocks him for being doesn't respond to the invite. Mom says he's still alive, but Sam takes a uncultured. She has a deeply disturbing love for Shakespeare; can be found shuttle a month before the wedding, heads back to Earth, drives out to reading Hamlet and cracking up the way no sane person should, and even Riverside, and heads to the bar. though he's not a big fan of books he wants to read them just to see what Jim is in a room downstairsapparently the new owners let him crash there she sees in them. in return for what? Sam doesn't want to think about that. That's how he knows it's love. "I'm getting married," he tells Jim's sleeping face. He looks so much like She doesn't ask him questions about his dad, and he doesn't offer them. Dad. "Her name is Aurie, and she wanted meshe thought you'd like this." She worries about Jim without ever having met him, and Sam likes that He puts down The Ultimate HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy next to Jim's he can let her worry for both of them. No, that's not right. He worries more, face, smoothes his hand over the bruises on the ridge of Jim's cheekbone. it's just he can't express it, not really. So she does, and it's he's expressing his worry vicariously through her, or something. "God Jim," he says helplessly. He programs his new numbers into Jim's comm, and leaves that night. He's a biologisthe's not great with words. Then he gets a garbled message from Jim at 4am Erandian time. He sighs, and comms Frank to see what the hell is going on at home. "What's going on with Jim?" Sam asks. "The fuck should I know?" Frank slurs. Sam frownsFrank never used to get drunk. "AFter I hit him" "You what?" Sam snarls, forgetting that Aurie is asleep beside him. "You bastard" "He started" "He's fifteen!," Sam shouts over him. "Where the fuck is he?" "The fuck should I know?" Frank sounds petulant, and Sam's fingers itch for his throat. He disconnects. Aurie frowns at him in askance. "Stepfather just hit my brother," he says shortly, comming his mother. "How was he?" Aurie asks. "He's 18 and going to die of alcoholism," he replies, and she wraps her arms around him. Jim sends him a message later: there's an infinite number of monkeys outside who want to talk to us about this script for Hamlet they've worked out." Aurie laughs and laughs and laughs and finally explains to him that it's from the book that it probably means Jim's fine. She sends him books with Sam's money, from then on, and Jim seems to read them all; remember them all. 8. When Aurie gets pregnant, they get an obnoxious care package in the form of a stork. A stork made out of diapers. "Jim, you asshole," Sam says helplessly.

Aurie beams. "Awesome that's that taken care of!" "He did what?" she asks. She's gone hard and clipped, and Sam smiles, and the face in the mirror is that of a stranger someone who wants to take Peter Nathan Kirk is born October 2, 6355. Every single one of his names the universe and bend it to their will. (except his last) belongs entirely to him. Sam's not that person. 9. I may be enrolled in Starfleet, Jim writes him. He's 24went to San "Hit him. Mom, you don't divorce this sonovabitch" Francisco two years after Sam got married, and seemed to do a hell of a lot "Divorce him?" she sneers. "He'll be lucky if I leave the phaser just set to better.Blame Vulcans. "kill"." Sam is so confused. For what?, he writes back. Jim doesn't live with their grandparents, and he won't come live with Sam, even though Sam offers (because that's what family does, but God, he's an Everything, Sam. Blame them for everything.. awful person for feeling so relieved when Jim laughs right in his ear). Sam has no idea what he's talking about. But Jim seems to be doing And Mom says he's just driftingdoes odd jobs, graduated, festers in Iowa. better, so he doesn't ask.

Jim goes into space, and Sam works on Earth Outpost II (because his name Although you see the world different than me is George Samuel Kirk, and he doesn't feel the weight of their dad's death, Sometimes I can touch upon the wonders that you see not like Jim does. He's just the only sane living Kirk). All the new colors and pictures you've designed Oh yes, sweet darling Two years later Xander Owen is born, and Jim saves Earth. So glad you are a child of mine Sam wants to know why everyone is surprised. Jim finally has enough - Carol King, "Child of Mine" space (and no, Sam's not really surprised it took an entire galaxy) to come 1. into his own. He had been bonded to T'Rei- married, and parted ways. Their continued 10. affiliation was not logical; T'Pau sent Sarek to Earth, and T'Rei stayed "I don't know how to how do you get Aurie to do things?" Jim demands, behind on Vulcan. They remained married, and every seven years she holding Xander gently. Peter had stared up at Jim and said, "Grandpa?" eased him through Pon Farr until her ascension to the position of High because he'd seen the holovids of Dad, and Jim hadn't crumpled, and Sam Master of Gol, when their marriage was annulled. had exhaled. Sarek felt little, save perhaps pride in her success. He expressed nothing: Then Jim glanced in the window and glared, because he's not that old. he was a Vulcan. "I don't?" Sam says, frowning at him. "Jim. You don't get your partner to When he met Amanda, the wave of emotion which assaulted him was do things you no, never mind, it's you." nearly debilitating. It was logical to marry her: to allow another to touch her, to have her and hold her dear, was not an option. "What's that mean?" "It means applying rules of normal people to you is impossible and a waste 2. When Amanda conceives, he is perturbed. He seeks the counsel T'Pau, of energy," Sam informs him. who administers a regimen of vitamins and hormones to ease the "He won't comeSam" Jim's face twists, and it reveals too much. pregnancy. Amanda's body adjusts to the dry heat of Vulcan, and she fills her time writing books and reading Vulcan histories as their son grows "Oh," Sam says. "Oh." beneath her ribcage. "Yeah," Jim agrees, looking down at Xander. "I'm not having kids." It is much discussed, even among Vulcans, and the collective "Well, no, not unless there's something you want to tell me about your consciousness notes the pregnancy of a Human woman with the child of specific biology or Vulcans, in which case I reserve the right to claim all the Sarek. credit for that discovery." When he is born he is Vulcan in appearance; long in the torso, his ears "No I mean. I couldn't do that to" Jim frowns. "I couldn't abandon pointing at the tips and his eyebrows slanting upwards. someone." His eyes are Amanda's- his son has Human eyes. Sam smiles slightly. "I'll make a deal with you. I'll have the kids and stay put and raise them, and you can come visit your neices and nephews whenever And yet his response to him is illogical- the surge of protective adoration which compels him to lift him gently and hold him close. you want to, and go shooting off into uncharted space." Jim grins. "Deal." "Okay. I have to put him to bedit's late." "Sam," Jim sounds strained, grabbing his coat and heading for the door, because Jim won't stay even where he's wanted. "Just if you ever get an offer to go to Deneva don't." "Jim" "I mean it, Sam. Just don't, okay?" "Okay," Sam says, frowning. He doesn't want to leave Earth Colony II, not ever, but he shrugs. That's Jim. 11. They're Kirks. Sometimes he thinks they can't help but be more. Mom can't, Dad couldn't, he can't (he beats out a Vulcan his third year on E.C. II for the Nobel/T'Heer'a Prize) but Jim is the worst of them all. They're all defined, in their own way, by Dad. Sam finally feels okay enough to let people start calling him George when he's 35. He has three names, and none of them are entirely his own. He doesn't mind that. Touch Upon the Wonders that You See Summary: Sarek does not always understand his son, but that does not mean he does not love him. He needs to be held constantly- he feels the absence of both of them most keenly, and Sarek concludes this means that his Vulcan heritage is strong within him: Spock is a touch telepath like the rest of their race. Amanda agrees that they must raise him on Vulcan. To raise Spock in a system which does not address the existence of such telepathy would cripple their child. She is very concerned with his education, but then that is logical, as Amanda is an excellent educator in her own right. 3. Spock develops far quicker than Sarek had projected. In spite of his handicap of a Human mother, Spock's mind is far more adept than his peers. He approaches situations with ruthless logic, and yet, when Sarek observes a data file with Spock's daily results upon it he can pinpoint certain inconsistencies within Spock's method of processing information. Where Sarek would start at a base of a problem and work through, as all Vulcans do, Spock does not seem to need that foundational approach. Rather than working in a progression of "as x is = to y and b=x, then b must also be = to y, which in turn results in y=x", Spock instead takes the data in a lump form, and his answers generally resemble a "y=x due to the fact that it is given that x=y". Spock eliminates extra data, focusing like a laser. He is correct, and advanced, but his thinking is not Vulcan, not entirely. He does not socialize with his peers, forming bonds within their society, but rather returns each day to spend time with his mother, reading quietly as she writes, or doing his own work in her company. Occasionally, when Sarek looks at them both, it is the same expression in both of their eyes.

When Spock is 16, he blows up the entire wing of the science labs. He is unrepentant, and his eyebrow lifts defiantly when he is confronted.

They turn to Sarek, who looks at them all impassively. He is pure Vulcan, of one of the purest and most influential lines on their planet. He will not apologize, and nor will he expect Spock to do so. Spock has made his There is no evidence that it was deliberate save the fact that Sarek knows decision, and Sarek does not fault him with it: it is illogical to request his son, and knows that his mentor, Sacchek, was highly xenophobic. Spock acceptance from those who do not understand and have no wish to do so. does not respond to goading or close questioning, and he is absolved. He refuses to discuss the matter with Sarek, but Amanda manages to draw Amanda plays with his collar and smoothes it as Spock prepares to board from him a confession of sorts- he left a highly reactive substance when he the shuttle for San Francisco, Earth. Sarek imagines she did the same when went to get sustenance near an open flame. he prepared to meet the council. "An honest mistake," he says. "Oh, Spock," Amanda sighs, taking his face in one of her hands. "You can't let them rile you so." "On the contrary, Mother, I am not riled," Spock avers. She sighs. "Spock. Violence is never the answer." "That is an illogical statement; on occasion, violence must be the answer." She shakes her head, taking his hands in hers, and he leans his forehead against hers. "I will do better," he relents, and she smiles. 4. For all the ways in which he is not purely Vulcan, Spock compensates neatly. They have no reason to reject him when at 19 he applies to the Vulcan Science Academy. "You have surpassed the expectations of your instructors. Your final record is flawless, with once exception: I see you have applied to Starfleet as well." "It was logical to cultivate multiple options." "Logical, but unnecessary. You're hereby accepted to the Vulcan Science Academy." In that moment, Sarek believes he sees the vindication on Spock's face, and then Sorvek continues, "It is truly remarkable, Spock, that you have achieved so much, despite your disadvantage. All rise." Sarek takes a moment longer, because he has seen the flicker of emotion skitter across his son's face, invisible to any but a father's eye trained to look for warning signs, and he knows now that this will be a situation like the blowing up of a science wing or the pummeling of a schoolmate- the Academy will never now know what Spock is capable of, because he will not be staying. "If you would clarify, Minister. To what disadvantage are you referring?" "Your Human mother." "Council; Ministers, I must decline." "No Vulcan has ever declined admission to this academy." Spock has never spent an extended period of time among non-Vulcans- his only experience with a Terran Human is Amanda, who is culturally sensitive to their ways. Amanda has always effortlessly navigated her interactions with Vulcans- it is a reason she is so dear to him. Most Humans mistake control of emotion for its lack. Sarek understands that Spock feels he must make this journey, but he cannot help the illogical surge of protectiveness. There is nothing he can do as ambassador, of course, but he does not envy Spock what he is about to encounter. He is a child of both worlds, but Sarek fears that neither will accept him. For three years Spock speaks of Starfleet in passive terms; clinical, emotionless, and rational. Amanda frowns and frets, and their home rings with the absence of their son. 5. "I am teaching courses at the Academy," Spock informs them over dinner. Amanda smiles at him, her eyes rich with pride and delight that her son should follow in both of his parents footsteps. "Your father taught at the Vulcan Science Academy," she says. "I was aware of that," Spock replies. His smile is for her, and she reaches out and squeezes his hand. Sarek watches as his son turns his hand under hers to clasp it in return. A Human response. His son is 23, and could have been a member of the Science Academy; could have been a true Vulcan. In the next two years he will become a Commander in Starfleet, and begin crafting the curriculum of the academy. And yet the conflict which rages in Spock is one which even Spock cannot address. His fierce loyalty to his mother and his deep adoration of her draws him to Earth and to Terrans in particular, but his physicality and his education render him Vulcan to Terrans. He belongs to neither world, and has no true sense of belonging. Sarek can only hope (illogically, perhaps) that continued work at Starfleet will give him purpose. 6. When Sarek desired for his son purpose two years ago, he never meant it to manifest in Jim Kirk.

"I have found a remarkable Human," Spock offers during a cocktail party at the Vulcan Embassy. "He is capable of doing advanced mathematics in his "Then as I am only half-Human your record remains untarnished." It is head, and yet is not enrolled in any institution of higher education, nor is he appropriate word choice, emphasizing Amanda's race, distancing himself a professor. He absorbs great amounts of information quickly and verbally. thoroughly, and can put them to practical use, and yet makes no use of "Spock. You have made a commitment to honor the Vulcan way." Long ago, these talents." as a child with a bloody lip, and every moment since as he pursued a "School isn't for everyone," Amanda says, almost doubtfully. Vulcan education, stayed upon his father's planet despite offers to travel to "He is a bartender, Mother." Earth. "Why did you come before the council today? Was it to satisfy your emotional need to rebel?" Sarek knows then the cause is lost: they do not understand Spock, and though Sarek is not fluent in his son, he knows well enough that this statement will only shove Spock off of Vulcan entirely. He will not stay. They will be deprived of his genius. "The only emotion I wish to convey is gratitude. Thank you, Ministers, for your consideration. Live long and prosper." Spock turns on his heel fluidly and leaves the room, doubtless to seek the council of the Human mother they have so insulted. Amanda bites her lip and sips her champagne. "I see. This vexes you." "It is illogical, and he is resistant to my attempts to rectify the situation." Amanda's expression tells Sarek that she believes Spock's interest in this young man to be less than platonic; that the deepening of the right corner of their son's mouth has not been lost upon her. Spock tells her about this mathematics prodigy he struggles with, and she laughs and shakes her head and is appropriately scandalized. It is times like these, as his son entertains his mother with frivolous stories, Sarek cannot help but be pleased. Spock is a troubling subject: Sarek is not

comfortable with how illogical his love for his son makes him at times, and the fact that he is ill-equipped to deal with a biracial child's struggles to find a place of belonging and a purpose plagues him with feelings of inadequacies, which is not logical. Spock puts down his untouched glass at 2200 hours, his gaze caught by something outside the window. "If you will excuse me," he says. "I have classes in the morning to prepare for." He kisses his mother goodnight and raises his hand to Sarek, who watches his son stride from the room, and then reappear outside, below. He tilts his head at a man on a motorcycle (inevitably Human), and then, to Sarek's infinite surprise, Spock settles behind the other man, wraps his arms around his chest, and allows himself to be driven away. It is most unusual. "I'm glad he has a project," Amanda says on the shuttle home, reaching and taking his hand as she is wont to do, wrapping her small fingers around his and watching the stars. "He's been so lost- at least this boy is a challenge." "You believe he lacks stimulus." "I think," she says slowly, thinking over her responses, "that giving someone else purpose gives him purpose." "That is not wise," Sarek observes. She smiles faintly, pressing two fingers to his own in an affectionate kiss. "Oh, Sarek. Love is hardly ever wise, but it is terribly necessary." 7. Their planet is being destroyed around them, and yet Spock is there, running up the steps. "Spock!" Amanda breathes, breaking their concentration as they attempt to absorb and keep alive their history within their own minds: within the collective consciousness of all Vulcans. "The planet has only seconds left we must evacuate," Spock says quickly. Amanda moves to follow, and Sarek does not hesitate.

"Apparently I was right," McCoy snarls. "Apparently that bastard doesn't feel a goddamn thing, and now we're headed for a little pow-wow with Starfleet with goddamn Jim marooned on Delta Vega." It makes little sense, especially if Jim is Jim Kirk, as Sarek assumes he is. He does not understand why Spock would maroon his protg on a frozen planet. Unless of course, Spock is too compromised by Kirk, and has eliminated that compromise. Logical, but unlike Spock. Sarek heads up towards the bridge, where he surmises that Kirk was undercutting Spock's authority. Sarek scarcely understands what is going on- the absence of billions of minds in the back of his own is unnerving him, and the absence of Amanda seriously threatening his grasp on his emotions. He elects to sit back and watch, to allow his son, clearly adept at this, to make the important decisions without interference. Spock's ability to function exceeds his own, and Sarek is proud of him. 9. The man from the transportation room, whom Sarek is now assuming is Kirk, is brought in with another man, and Sarek stands, watching the angry, resigned set of Spock's shoulders and wondering at it. The confrontation is brutal- Kirk knows what buttons to press, where Spock is most vulnerable, and appears, as all the rest of the crew do not, to be utterly unafraid of him, even as Spock yells and attacks him. And then his son's hand clenches tighter and tighter around the Human's throat, the Human who has goaded him beyond all countenance; a full Vulcan would perhaps have been able to resist such an onslaught, but Sarek himself felt the stirrings of rage within him which he feared briefly that he could not control. He allows it to continue too long: this vengeance of Amanda on a Human who does not understand the depth of their grief. "Spock."

Spock stares down at the man gasping and coughing on the console, and their eyes catch and meet in a moment incongruous to the events which have just transpired. Spock looks back at Sarek, then his shoulders hunch "Mother, now!" and he says, shaken visibly (not as a Vulcan- so Human in this moment), The building collapses around them, and Spock holds Amanda tightly as "Doctor, I am no longer fit for duty, I hereby relinquish my command based they run, her arm through his as she cries out as they all might wish to do as on the fact that I have been emotionally compromised. Please note the time everything collapses around them. and date in the ship's log." He looks at the man on the console, and then, quietly, "Mr. Kirk. The ship is yours." "Spock to Enterprise, get out out now," Spock says briskly into his comm. They stand apart, Amanda stepping forward to look at the disaster being Kirk- this man is Spock's protg, the man whom he has been wrapped up perpetrated on their planet, and as they begin to energize, she turns to look in for three years- this man has goaded him about the loss of Amanda. at them all, horror in her eyes. Sarek finds he is even more lost than he normally feels when attempting to understand his son. How can this man be anything to him when he has such And then she is falling, Spock's hand flinging out, and then they are on the power to destroy Spock? Enterprise, and Spock is standing, shocked. There are two men in space suits, a young Human at the console, but Sarek He follows as Kirk's voice announces, "Either we're going down, or they are. Kirk out." He is so very Human. Sarek departs to find his son. hardly notices them. "Speak your mind, Spock," he urges, finding him where it is most logical to She is gone. find him: the room in which they arrived and realized Amanda was not with She is lost, and Spock is more Human in that moment than Sarek has ever them, lost to Nero's rage. seen him. "That would be unwise." It is perhaps fitting. "What is necessary is never unwise 8. "I am as conflicted as I once was as a child." Sarek does not know what happens on the bridge, but Doctor McCoy punches a wall upon his return. "You will always be a child of two worlds. I am grateful for this, and for you." Nurse Chapel takes his hand and bandages it quietly as he speaks to her, her blue eyes widening in evident shock. "I thought they- " "I feel anger who took mother's life. An anger I cannot control," Spock confesses. "I believe that she would say, 'Do not try to.' You asked me once why I married your mother. I married her because I loved her."

Amanda would have taken him into her arms, but Sarek cannot. He cannot offer Spock this- he is drained and unsteady from revealing so much. Spock feels anger: Sarek is grateful that he feels it. Anger keeps Humans alive, anger fuels them- Sarek only feels grief so overwhelming he nearly cannot contain it. Spock passes him in the hall- does not stop and join Sarek and the other council members. Starfleet personnel all look and move from his path, and Sarek does not blame him; his son walks with sudden purpose. He hopes it will not be in vain. He does not think that even adherence to logic will save him should he lose both Amanda and Spock. 10. He searches for his son after it has come to pass that Nero is defeated, and they are not consumed in a black hole. He is in the hallway of a lower deck, his head pressed to the head of the Human, Kirk, whom he had earlier throttled, and then joined upon a suicide mission. Sarek cannot logically explain the events of the last few hours. He will not try to, but his steps pause as he adjusts to the new data set.

"That is an illogical supposition. I should have seen- ." "I'm Human, Spock. That doesn't mean I'm not right." Kirk's thumbs settle on psi points- not that Kirk, not being a Vulcan, would be capable of knowing such a thing. Sarek cannot imagine that Spock would have shared such knowledge- there would have been no cause so to do. He never shared the information with Amanda, as she could not have done anything with it. "And your logic isn't exactly sound, there," Kirk continues. "It's illogical and a very human impulse to make this about you." "Then she would be proud that I am embracing that facet of my heritage." "I'm sure." "You must return to the bridge." "You're coming with me." It is both question and statement, a verbal manipulation which Sarek has always been fascinated by, as Terran Humans are the only species discovered thus far in the galaxy who use it with any regularity and effectiveness.

"It comes to my attention that there are inherent dangers in leaving you unsupervised on the bridge, especially given the absence of Doctor "I know, Spock. God, I know," Kirk is saying, his hands sliding up Spock's arms, up his neck to cup his face. His son's hands rest on the Human's hips, McCoy." Spock pauses. "Although it is possible he does not exert the mitigating force that one might believe due to his personality." tight as though he will not let go. "I am telling him you said that," Kirk informs him, taking his hand, and Sarek "It should not have worked- " watches as his fingers stroke down Spock's, and Spock leans into him. "I told you it would." "Wait until he wreaks his hypo-filled vengeance for that slight on his "You know as well as I that statistically- " character. I'll just sit and laugh, and laugh, and laugh" his voice fades as they walk down the corridor, though Sarek believes it is logical to assume "Statistically we had a 12.4509% chance of succeeding. An 84.593007% he is still talking. chance that one of us would die in the event that we didn't both die. I know the numbers, Spock." "My mother had an 82% chance of survival, which leapt to 94% when one factors in Chekov at the transporter. Why should we have succeeded- why should we survive- " "I don't know. I don't know, Spock. It's illogical." Spock snorts softly, and Kirk grins. "I'm just worried about the ride home," Kirk reflects. "I mean, Sulu does well under pressure, but what if he forgets where the brake is when we dock?" "Jim." "Or Chekov's accent confuses the computer- which we have to fix the programming on that, remind me to tell Uhura about seeing if- " "Jim." This time Spock's tone is lighter, surfacing from his grief. "Or what if I decide that I want to go frolic in the neutral zone- you know that Sulu would listen if I told him to change course- " "Frolic." "I could frolic." "I do not believe anyone who is over the age of five is capable of such an action." "C'mon. I could totally frolic." "I will leave you to frolic on your own time, then- " "No, no, I don't have to frolic right now- " "- as I would not wish to deprive you of the experience which will surely- " "Spock." It is too much to process, and so he saves the issue for another day's analysis and processing.

11. Spock elects to stay with Starfleet, becoming first officer aboard the Enterprise. Sarek's new duties, the unending tasks before them of establishing New Vulcan and drawing together the roughly five hundred thousand Vulcans left spread all over the galaxy, collecting genetic samples to begin to create the next generation, keep him busy. Yet he spares time in his day to think of his son out in the black of space, finding new worlds, and patrolling the Neutral Zone. Every other year he and Kirk take their mandatory rest on New Vulcan, where Kirk neglects to wear both shirt and shoes and simultaneously disrupts and fascinates them all with what a perfect specimen of Humanity he is. Spock watches him with a raised eyebrow and a slight smile, and it occurs to Sarek that Spock has found a place where he fits; a place where he can be simply "Spock" and not identified entirely by either culture he was born into. On the Enterprise, Sarek believes Spock is finally free. "That's it. I'm melting. This is me, melted into a puddle of goo. This is vengeance, isn't it? This is you exacting your revenge because Pike picked me to replace him as captain and you've just been waiting, plying me with sexual favors so I'd come here and expire on your freaking hot planet- new planet, whatever." "If I had wanted to commit mutiny I could have done so from the ship long ago." "Yeah right, they all like me best." "That is what they allow you to believe, yes," Spock agrees.

Sarek clears his throat from the doorway of the home which they have And there, in a hallway on a ship of 300 crew members and 6 Vulcan elders, bought and in which Kirk is spread, limbs akimbo, on the floor in only swimming shorts. He is flushed, and raises up onto his elbows without a hint Kirk pulls Spock's face to his and kisses him. of embarrassment. "Sarek." "I let go of her." "Captain. Spock, T'Pau wishes to discuss with you a new wife, for the Pon "It wasn't your fault." Farr- "

"That will not be necessary, Father," Spock says, and Kirk, in the background, laughs and flops back onto the floor, his body quivering with mirth. "The matter has been seen to." Logically, Sarek decides he has no interest in knowing. You've Got a Piece of Me Summary: Seven months into their five year stint aboard the Enterprise, Jim's meld with Ambassador Spock comes back to bite him in the ass. 1. Seven months into their five year stint aboard the Enterprise, Jim's meld with Ambassador Spock comes back to bite him in the ass. "The Jimmy Carter and the Krishna are out of danger," Uhura reports, turning in her chair and looking out the viewing screen involuntarily. "Captain, if we don't get out of the supernova's range in three minutes, I estimate that we will be overtaken and we will not escape," Chekov reports softly, looking at Sulu helplessly. "I need Warp 4 at least, Captain," Sulu agrees. Jim shifts, glancing back at Spock, who turns and listens to Scotty, his eyebrows drawing together. Scotty starts shouting about how the warp drive is completely offline, and in the background Bones snarls that the radiation is too thick for anyone to go in and actually fix it, and Spock stands up. "As you are so fond of observing, Doctor: I am not Human." Uhura makes some sound of protest, and Jim turns to look at him, but somewhere in the space of turning his eyes from the viewing screen back to Spock, he's assaulted by the sense memory of lying against a glass, fingers pressed in a salute as Spock dies on the other side. "Are you out of your Vulcan mind?" Bones is demanding. "We'll find some other way!" Jim snaps, hurling out of his chair. "Uhura, have security prepare evacuation pods- Spock, if you even think of pinching me, I will haunt your ass so hard you've got no idea- " "Captain, back online!" Scotty shouts before Jim's even managed to get to the transporter. "Sulu- " And Sulu's already punching them to Warp 4 and they're free of the supernova, but Jim can't sit back down, can't"Sulu, you have the conn." He's almost made it back to his room when it hits again. - "He'll die!" Wrenching against three men holding him back, keeping him from"He's dead already." That's Scotty- reasonable and devastated all at once. And Spock's curled up on the far side of the chamber, on the other side of the glass that Jim presses his hands to, and when Jim calls to him, impossibly, Spock stands, straightens his uniform, and staggers over- blind. Skin burned. "Jim, out of danger?" "Yes." "Don't grieve, Admiral Is logical. The needs of the many outweigh " "The needs of the few." "Or the one." "I never took the Kobayashi Maru test 'til now. What do you think my solution?"

"Spock." Following him down as he sank to the ground. "I have been and always shall be your friend." His hand against the glass in the salute Jim knew so well. " .Live long. And prosper." Jim pressing his hand to the glass on the other side of Spock's hand, and Spock's hand dropping as he fell against the glass. "No." Stupid, inadequate, not anguished just- stunned. Staring at the top of Spock's still head until he can't support his own weight and he sinks down to the floor too. The crew around him, but hunched like he's five against the glass next to Spock's body, staring vacantly, no one daring to rouse him"Jim. Jim- " A mind against his, Spock, his Spock, and Jim gasps and follows the link back, because he's not that man and Spock's not that Spock, and he's not an Admiral and"My mind to your mind." "Your thoughts to my thoughts," Jim whispers, leaning his head on Spock's shoulder. - Spock back, but not remembering, confused, looking at each of themScotty, Uhura, Bones, Sulu, Chekov- as though he should know them and yet not, and then stopping and staring. "My father says that you have been my friend. That you came back for me." "You would have done the same for me." "Why would you do this?" "Because the needs of the one outweighed the needs of the many." And he's confusing Spock, more than Spock ever usually lets on, even after twenty years of knowing each other. "I have been and forever shall be your friend." "Yes. Yes, Spock." "Ship. Out of danger?" "You saved the ship. You saved us all. Don't you remember?" And then a long silence, and Spock walking towards him, brows heavy. "Jim. Your name is Jim." "Yes." "What the hell's wrong with him?" That's Bones, but Jim's not sure why Bones is in his room, he's not sure why he's in his room, he's on Vulcanexcept no, Vulcan's been destroyed, and Bones isn't that old, not yet, and he's sure as hell not that old, and his eyes are blue, not hazel, and his hair isn't curly and Spock's hair would never be that out of place and oh fuck that hurts"A mind-meld gone awry," Spock says, and his hands shift- different psi points and Jim really fucking hopes he has a solution because Jim's solution is jumping out of an airlock, which"It's killing him!" "That would be a correct assessment, Doctor." "Goddamnit, Spock we've got to get him to- " "If you will permit me," Spock snaps, and Spock never snaps, and then he's in Jim's head again, every nerve in Jim's body is chantingSpockSpockSpockSpock "Our minds," Spock says, "one and together. Touching, yet not touching. Apart, yet never apart."

"Touching," Jim gasps, "yet not touching. Apart yet never apart " And there, locking neatly behind doors, are Ambassador Spock's memories, and curled at the base of Jim's mind is Spock's, steady and reassuring, coaxing Jim's mind into barriers, and that's so not going to be enough because- . "We are one," he hears them say together. - "The only emotion I wish to convey is gratitude." "Mother, now!" "Oh, Spock, whatever you choose to be, as always, you will have a proud mother." "Live long and prosper." "He has sad eyes." "I find myself desiring to find your stepfather and commit acts of violence against him," Spock manages. Jim laughs, helplessly, into the curve of Spock's neck. "Next time we dock at Earth, I'll take you to Iowa," Jim promises. He's not sure how much time he spends drifting in and out of Spock's memories, separating them from his own, but when he wakes up- regains consciousness, whatever- they're in the sick bay. "You goddamn motherfucking idiots!" Bones snaps. "Doctor," Chapel says in an amused voice. "Don't "Doctor" me, Chapel. These two idiots have been out for seven hours because neither one of them has an ounce of brains or logic in their fucking heads!" Bones is on a tear. "Chapel," Jim manages around a very dry throat. "The doctor will take two shots of whisky and then about 8 ounces of Scotty's home brew." "Yes, Captain," she laughs. "Now, she's gone. What the fuck did you two- " "My alternate counterpart passed to Jim relevant information in order to obtain his cooperation via a mind-meld. However, as Jim and I had already melded prior to the Ambassador's attempt, Jim's mind was adept at finding things which perhaps the Ambassador did not expect to have to guard. These memories have been leaking into the captain's subconscious, triggered by certain events." "And you've known this for seven months?" Bones demands. "I have only just realized the extent of the matter. Jim has known for quite a bit longer." Jim winces, and wonders if it's too late to flop back and pretend to be sound asleep. He's getting a vibe from Spock that guarantees if he tries it Spock'll kill him. Right. So. Not so much with the fake-sleeping. "Great," Bones exclaims dryly. "And now what, we have to deal with Jim having psychotic breaks thanks to your alternate- " "Hey!" Jim protests. "It wasn't a psychotic break- " "You shut up," Bones snaps. "Look, Spock- " "On the contrary, Doctor. The captain and I have now bonded; with my help, he will be able to differentiate between the Ambassador's memories and his own experiences. For the duration of time which you perceived us to be unconscious- " "Unconscious- your brain scans were off the fucking charts!" "That is to be expected during a bonding- "

"Bonded," Bones repeats, apparently determined that no one but him is going to finish a sentence, and then pinches the bridge of his nose. "Oh, that's just great. So when some Starfleet hoity-toity asks me if I think either one of you is emotionally compromised- well, it'll be about you, because Jim isalways compromised- " "Hey!" "I'm just supposed to gloss over the fact that you two are fucking married, now? Goddamnit, Jim!" "In this matter, Doctor, yes. We would appreciate your silence and your assistance." Jim looks at him. "Bones." Bones stares at the both of them, and then sits on the bed across from them, defeated. "You know, before I knew the two of you, my life was so much simpler. I'm ordering daily brain scans to make sure nothing extraordinary's going on- Spock, your parents bonded, right?" "Yes." "I want you to contact your goddamn father and find out what the fuck we're in for. Jesus." Bones points an accusing finger at Jim as he stares balefully at Spock. "Him I expect this shit from- you're supposed to be the good influence!" "You would have preferred him catatonic or dead?" Spock inquires. "Okay, enough of that, we're due for something, not here," Jim interrupts. "Get out of my infirmary," Bones agrees. "Chapel! Where the hell're those goddamn drinks?" 2. "So. Married, huh?" Jim asks, grinning slightly as they head for his quarters. "Bonded, it is a difference in that- " The door slides shut behind them, and Jim presses him against it and kisses him. "Jim- " "Do I sound like I'm going to complain- " "I admit that my fear for your well-being compromised my decision making- " "Spock." "- And I- what?" "I do." It takes Spock a minute to get the reference: the parallel between "we are one" and "I do," but when he gets it his face softens and his eyebrow cocks in a wry smile. "That," he says, "is because you are illogical." "You keep saying that word," Jim remarks, biting down his neck. "I don't think it means what you think it means." And someday, he's going to force Spock to watch The Princess Bride. Someday that is not today, with Spock pressing him against the door now, kneeling in front of him and taking Jim into his mouth- when exactly had his pants pooled around his ankles?- licking the head and breathing, teasing, his hands pinning Jim's hips to the door because Spock? Is a bastard. Jim's already panting, though, trying to recite the first 100 primes because he's embarrassingly close to shooting his load, and Spock's grin says he totally knows it. And then he lowers his hot, hot mouth and sucks hard, thumbs pressing bruises because Jim likes it a little rough, and he looks so hot like that, on his knees, Jim's cock in his mouth, going to town and flushed slightly green, like maybe he can come from just this, and the thought of that is enough to

make Jim groan, his head hitting the door and his knees buckling. Spock groans too, which is unusual enough to tip Jim right over the edge and Spock swallows, tongue cleaning Jim's softening cock before pulling away and rising gracefully to kiss him- and god, he's still fully dressed, that asshole. Jim reaches down to return the favor, and his hand comes away wet. "Spock- " "It is the bond," Spock murmurs against his lips. Which explains Spock vocalizing pleasure, and Jim's early loss of control and"Okay," Jim says as his mind spirals out into what that could mean. "That's awesome." 3. For five months, Jim has the best sex of his life. It's one thing to figure out through trial and error what your partner likes- it's another to know that Spock really, really loves it when Jim nips at the tips of his fingers and then sucks them, dirty and hard, because it makes him hard. He can gauge how much Spock enjoys any given thing based upon his own body's responses. After the first month of it, Bones threatens to sneak up and inject them with sedatives so they get some goddamn sleep. The other memories fade- they're like movies, now. He can pull them up, and see Sam dead on the floor on Deneva (and fuck the Prime DirectiveSam is never going to Deneva. Jim had that flash over a year ago, before Spock even signed on, but that doesn't mean he's not determined). The bond does more than make him (even more of) a sex god; sometimes he thinks he's said something, or Spock's said something, and they respond and get strange looks. Bones grimaces, but says Sarek gave him no indication anything would go wrong, so he's just watching them. Which- he's been watching Jim for years, so Jim's not exactly chafing under the attention, but it's bugging Spock; Jim can feel it. So at first he thinks that the anger uptick he's getting from Spock is nothingjust Bones on his case. Jim's not exactly sure what happened. Okay, not an unusual occurrence when it comes to Spock, but right now there isn't any fucking going on, and that, besides being a travesty, is ananomaly. Even when they were fighting about whether or not Spock was going to be his first officer or not, there was sex. It started about a month ago- Spock doesn't plead a headache, but it's a close thing. His shift gets mysteriously switched. He starts needing to meditate. If he was a chick, Jim would think pregnancy. Okay, Jim does have a moment of panic and he and the computer bond a little when he was reassured that no, under no circumstances did Vulcan males ever carry the offspring. And then he comms Sam, who groans and says, "God, Jim, no. Vulcan males never carry the offspring. Jesus." And the thing is, it's not like he's unaware of the fact that Spock wants him. The bond, despite Spock slamming up all his walls, coils hot at the base of his spine, sometimes hitting him like a blow to the solar plexus and it's not fair, okay? Because Spock's clearly horny, and Jim's horny, and they're bonded, and Jim's pretty sure Spock will kill him if he tries to pick up a space floozy, and Jim? Is fucking sick of his right hand.

4. "I do not think- " Chekov breaks off, and they both watch Commander Spock walk down the corridor, back and shoulders creating a perfect T of angry Vulcan. "We're all going to die," Sulu decides. "We're all going to die, I'm just saying, when do you think it'll be?" "Will not matter," Chekov replies. "Whoever wins will not be able to spend the money- will be dead." That might be true, but Sulu is still collecting bets from everyone except Scotty and McCoy. McCoy because (a) he's the captain's best friend, and (b) he's in league with Scotty in the plan to get completely shitfaced in the face of Spock's new super calm outlook on life. Compounded on top of the fact that the First Officer is very, very calm, the Captain has his most special brand of crazy eyes going on. The crazy eyes that looked at Nero and watched him fall into a black hole: the crazy eyes that provoked Spock into bloodlust. They're all going to die. 5. The thing is, Jim doesn't really have friends anymore. He does- but. Bones has a policy of absolutely no domesticity, and trying to talk to Scotty either ends up with Jim under a table, drunk out of his mind, or with them singing at the top of their lungs, still drunk out of his mind. Jim is really bad at staying sober around Scotty. Sulu bets on everything, and Chekov kind of thinks Spock's the most amazing thing ever, and it would kill Jim inside a bit to confide to an 18 year old about his relationship problems. He could go to Uhura- but he kind of thinks that when it comes to going to Uhura, it's like going to his mom: shit has to be seriously bad for him to go there. And Sam and he haven't ever had that kind of relationship, and fuck- he had no idea how fucking dependent he was on Spock until Spock decided to divorce him without telling Jim. Spock is meditating all the time when he's not on duty. He's tight and controlled and it's not a version of Spock Jim's sure he's ever dealt with before. His mental barriers aren't just up, they're almost aggressively beating any potential invaders off (which is giving Jim a motherfucking headache, okay?). And Jim is not handling it as well as he might. He gets Sulu to teach him the basics of fencing, and Sulu seems to like having the opportunity to beat Jim with a sharp object, but that lasts about an hour once or twice a week. He gets Uhura to give him a datafile on one of the Romulan dialects so he can learn that, and it's depressing how fast he's picking it up because, oh yes, he has no one to occupy his time. Jim knows that when he's bored, it generally ends up being a bad thing for well, everyone. He cites his life, years 5-22. Scotty, at least, is smart enough to put up firewalls that give Jim enough pause to allow Scotty time to get into the system and send him a message telling him to get the fuck out of the Enterprise's systems every time Jim gets the itch to investigate his baby's code. But the thing is- well, the other thing is- he's been spending all his free time with Spock. He feels like he's missing a limb or something, but Spock goes entirely Vulcan with his, "Everything is perfectly fine, Captain." Even though Jim's never "Captain" when they're off-duty. 6. "What do you mean, you're not coming?" "It is illogical to send the First Officer and the Captain down to a planet with potential hostiles," Spock replies oh-so-very logically. Jim wants to punch

him. Jim's come out the other side of "bored" right into "restless aggression." "Spock- " "I believe that Lt. Uhura will be a more than adequate replacement," Spock continues inexorably. Jim stares at him, and then at Uhura, who shrugs minutely at him. He sets his jaw, and absolutely does not think about cutting Spock. "Energize," he snaps at Scotty, who is watching Jim like Jim's the crazy one. The Alokians are a warlike, suspicious people. They're relatively advanced and have conquered the planets of their solar system. Jim is so not impressed: they wear miniskirts. And they're sexist. They keep ignoring Uhura entirely, even though she's the one actively negotiating with them, and Jim is just slouched in his chair, fingering his phaser wistfully with one hand while the other clenches and unclenches on the table-top, imagining Spock's throat in the place of the empty air.

"You didn't forget his birthday?" "No." "You didn't say something stupid about his mother?" "What? No!" "You didn't deliberately goad Sarek?" "Not lately, and Spock thinks that's funny." " You haven't flagrantly defied orders, or violated Starfleet codes anymore than usual, at least. Sexual and emotional involvement of officers is expressly forbidden, you know." She seems to be compelled to remind him of this out of sheer force of habit. "I come from a long line of people who have violated that," Jim points out. "My mom was pregnant with me on a starship. And besides, nothing happened a month ago." She sighs. "All right. I'll see if anyone can remember anything. Try not to create a bomb out of your comm again." She hands it back to him. "And Captain- that crazy-eyed, 'I'm a badass Starfleet Captain' routine you pulled today worked here, but it won't work again."

Four hours in, they've barely gotten through preliminaries, because the Alokians switched the treaty and are insisting that the Enterprise's crew, and "It'll work on the Romulans," he mutters. thus the Federation, is trying to cheat them out of their Jim doesn't even know what the fuck these people have that's so important. Cows, "Jim," she snaps. probably. He raises his hands. "I'm not going into the Neutral Zone to pick fights with "Right," Jim decides abruptly, ignoring the way Uhura's boot digs into his Romulans," he mutters. foot. "You have five minutes to finish this treaty or I'm just declaring war on She sighs, rolls her eyes, and hugs him, cradling the back of his head as he all of you." leans against her. They blink at him, and Jim curls his lips into a smile that goes nowhere near his eyes. "My chief engineer says my ship's firepower can blow up a planet. "God," she mutters. "You're so ridiculously in love with him I'm embarrassed for you." I'm just dying for an excuse to test that claim." Uhura's lips twitch as she leans forward, her hand curling around his phaser and pulling. He doesn't let go. "What Captain Kirk is saying is that the Federation has extended membership and a generous trade agreement to you and your colonies, but their generosity isn't boundless and they don't appreciate being played a fool." She punctuates it with another jerk on the phaser, and, petulantly, he lets her have it. Deprived of his only real distraction, he glowers at the Alokians, who glance at him almost nervously. Damn straight. Uhura gives them a minute, and Jim sees the moment she sees what he's doing to the wiring on his comm. She snatches that too, and leans forward. "The treaty?" she presses. They agree that, yes, the Federation's version is fine, and of course they're more than happy to sign it right now, and they're sure that the Captain and his Lieutenant would like to return to their ship immediately. Uhura grabs his arm when they're back on the Enterprise, pulling him down to his quarters, which he opens the door to. "Please, Lieutenant," he invites dryly. "Mi casa es su casa." "Shut up," she says. "What is going on with you and Spock?" "Nothing." "That's complete lies and you know it. Scotty is selling the homebrew for a fortune because people want to be heavily "medicated" in the event that Spock strangles you on a console again, and Sulu is taking bets about when, and how, you two will have it out." "There is nothing going on," he snaps, because it's true. She's smart- it only takes her a second. Language is, after all, her specialty. "What did you do?" she groans, sitting down at the chair behind his desk. "Nothing!" He might, possibly, flail. No one will ever prove it. "I didn't do anything, he just- we were fine until a month ago." "I know," he mutters. 7. "We must go to New Vulcan." "Spock, we're seventeen sectors over, out of the quadrant entirely, and we have a - what the- ?" "Jim. It is necessary that we go to Vulcan." He sounds way too calm for the guy who has Jim pressed against the wall, fingers wrapped around Jim's wrists as his blunt nails bite into Jim's skin, pressing hard enough that Jim's bones creak. "Okay, not that this- ngh!- isn't really fascinating- God!- but you're on duty in oh, seven minutes ago, which is why I'm here to get your recalcitrant ass up to the bridge and are you even listening to me?" "No," Spock replies, finally owning up to what Jim has suspected for almost four years. Jim is about to crow over this, or maybe ask what the fuck Spock thinks he's doing, after giving Jim blue balls for two months and the cold shoulder, which was worse, when Spock bites his neck and thrusts his leg between Jim's, pressing in and up. He should probably do something about this- something that doesn't include Spock's tongue in his mouth and him riding Spock's leg in a way that is about as far from "captain" and as close to "slut" as it's possible to get. Really. He should be doing something about this. Right now- even though the tongue-fucking and wanton riding are way more appealing. Spock grins in a way that makes it absolutely clear he knows exactly what Jim's thinking. It's feral and filthy and goes straight to Jim's cock, which is about when he knows they're fucked, because Jim has no impulse control and Spock is apparently unbearably horny and if Jim is their last best hope for rationality? Fucked might not even begin to cover what they are. He's yanked roughly around, pressed against Spock's wall and there's tearing and oh shit- that was his pants. But then Spock's pressed against

him, hot and insistent at Jim's back, wet with precome and sliding in a filthy promise along Jim's ass. Jim presses back- it's not like he's not still loose from this morning (Gaila had a twisted sense of what was an appropriate gift, okay, and Spock hasn't been fucking him so Jim's been making do), so he ignores all the ways his body is going to tell him it hates him a few hours from now and reaches a hand behind him and grips Spock's ass, urging him in, deeper, harder. Spock shoves his fingers into Jim's mouth and Jim sucks and nips, hearing Spock gasp helplessly and yeah, the feedback loop is blown open right now because it's too much, it's overstimulation. Spock is burning up behind Jim, and for once he's glad they're in Spock's room because being fucked against his own cool walls wouldn't be nearly as attractive, and Spock always keeps the ambient temperature of his room hot and oh shit, Jim needs to be thinking about something, anything else right now, or he's going to come right the fuck now. for any real number, x, e^ix=cos(x) +isin(x), where e is the base of the natural logarithm, i is the imaginary unit, and cos and sin are the- the"Jim," Spock rasps in his ear, something heavy and dark and possessive lurking in the undercurrents of his voice, "be here." He's going to combust. Spock's always been a bit of a teasing bastard in bed but now he's downright cruel- hands pinning Jim's to the wall so the only friction Jim gets on his own cock happens whenever Spock fucks into him. It's not enough, not nearly enough, and Jim wants to sob in frustration. It's possible that he does- he can't hear anything over the rush of blood past his ears. Spock keeps grabbing his mind, keeping it pinned the way he's keeping Jim's body pinned, and Jim's throat is raw as he gasps desperately, clenching around Spock's cock. Spock is so much stronger, and usually he controls it- but he's not, not now. Now he's manhandling Jim, shifting him up so the angle suits Spock better, but leaves Jim with no friction against his cock and with his weight balance precariously on his toes. Gravity and Spock wreak havoc on him until Jim's thighs are trembling and he's boneless, incapable of doing anything but breathing in harshly and releasing it in whimpering trickles. He's coated in sweat- it's dripping down him, and he and Spock aren't grinding against each other anymore- it's a slick slide of skin. "I need- " Spock gasps, and then his hands are under Jim's thighs, and coming, hard. As he lets Jim back down, his fingers brush Jim's cock, and it's like he's sucked it because Jim comes and comes and comes. "It is early," Spock says. "What is?" Jim demands, blinking and wondering when he wound up on the bed. Whatever. He doesn't care. "The blood burning." Jim looks at him blankly. "Pon Farr." Like somehow that's going to help Jim figure out what the fuck is going on. "When a male of the Vulcan species matures, every seven years he is overcome by the biological imperative to " "Propagate the species?" Jim offers as tactfully as possible. "Yes. It is, by my estimates, seven years early." "Maybe it's a survival instinct, because there are so few Vulcans- " Spock reaches down and thoughtfully takes Jim's balls in his hand, and Jim goes silent. "That is logical." "So you've been a dick because of this."

"I- yes. I was caught off-guard, and the symptoms have not manifested in the manner we are taught to be aware of." "How long- " "Two days- perhaps- this is- " "Unusual, I got it," Jim agrees. He's got to tell Bones. At the thought Spock looms over him, pinning him and grinding against him, sinking his teeth into Jim's skin. "With me," he snarls. "I am," Jim retorts. "God- Spock, we can't both be MIA for two days- Bones has to- look, I'll just send him a message, okay? I won't even see him- " Spock stares down at him, and Jim can feel it- the warring between what Pon Farr does to him and the knowledge that Jim's right. Jim sends the message with Spock wrapped around him, his hand slowly working Jim's cock. Bones' reply is instantaneous: I'm giving you two days, and then I'm coming in there. By the time Spock has him spread out on the bed Jim can't think clearly anymore- the wards Spock had up are gone, and Jim's drowning in it; the insatiable, burning desire for contact, to be as close as possible and then closer than that, even. 8. "I am coming the fuck in," Bones announces loudly, his hand over his eyes as he opens the door. "You two had better at least have pants on, and if I see one suspicious bodily fluid I will give you both full physicals every week for the rest of this mission." "Don't be such a fucking drama queen," Jim snorts. He's sprawled on Spock's bed, but he's got pants on and Spock even set the temperature slightly lower than usual. They showered and everything. Bones glares at him suspiciously. "You're fine?" "Sore, fucked-out, but fine. Hey, do you have those doughnut things that I could sit on and- " "Jesus, I can do better than a doughnut," Bones snorts, wielding a hypo. "Roll over." "Doctor McCoy." "I've got one for you too," Bones informs him as he stabs Jim's ass with a hypo. Jim rolls his eyes, but Spock's still looming, tight and possessive. "Spock." T'hy'la. Spock's shoulders unclench. Bones' eyebrow hits his hairline. "You've got Beta duty tomorrow. Both of you had better fucking show up." "Got money on it, Bones?" "You bet your ass. Put me through this much shit, I'm gonna make some pocket change for the shore leave I'm sure you're going to schedule very soon." He glares at them both balefully, and then departs. Jim looks at Spock, who sits on the bed beside him. "Hey, what?" "I feel I must- apologize." "Spock." "We are given eight days warning before the plak tow sets in," Spock says, fingers tracing up and down Jim's. "Then we must mate, commit great violence, or die. For it to build for a month is unheard of. It may be, as you

posited, a result of the loss of so many of our species, or perhaps is due to my Human biology." "So every seven years we're going to fuck like rabbits." "I- yes." He gives Jim a look, and Jim can feel how unamused he is by the parallel. Jim grins. "Yeah, what part of that am I supposed to complain about?" he asks, pulling Spock down, because finger kisses are hot, sure, but Spock's tongue is a wonder to behold. "You are illogical," Spock mutters. "Lucky for you," Jim snorts. 9. "Mr. Sulu, status." Sulu stares at him, and Jim takes a happy bite of his apple. Bones groans and rolls his eyes, and Uhura bites her lip. "I- everything is prepared, sir, we're seven minutes from entering Golth VII's orbit." "Excellent. I see none of you blew anything up while I was out of commission. Who won the pool?" " Doctor McCoy." "Awesome. Uhura, why are we going to Golth VII again?" "Because the Alokian's referred them to us, and us to them," she replies with a weary smile. "They heard our captain was batshit crazy. Sir." "Sounds like a great guy," Jim announces expansively, catching Spock's eye as he sprawls more comfortably in the chair. Spock lifts an eyebrow and Jim grins. Yeah. They're all gonna be fine. Part of My Soul waldorph Summary: Spock thought the worst thing that could happen to him was that he would lose Jim. Then he fell through a black hole with a particularly troubled Romulan Work Text: I can't let you go Can't let you go You're part of my soul You're all that I know Can't let you go - Matchbox Twenty, "I Can't Let You Go" 1. When he'd lost Jim, he'd thought that that would be the greatest death he would be forced to face; to endure. Jim, as Picard had observed when he had broken the news to Spock that the captain was gone, had scarcely faced his own. "He grinned at me," Picard had said as he'd headed for the door, pausing and resting his hand against the frame. "Crushed, and dying. He grinned and said, 'It was fun'. He also said that you would say he was" he trails off, apparently looking for the right words, fresh in his memory, "'An irrational, illogical human being, taking on a mission like that.'" Spock's eyebrow had lifted, but he had no words. There were no words. Not then. Picard had nodded, and departed. He had gone to Veridian III. There was no way to say to Jim that in all the ways Jim could have (should have) died, the one way Spock never wanted

was for him to die alone. Spock had had the luxury of death with Jim Kirk on the other side of the wall, close enough that he could feel Jim's desperate grief. Jim had died alone, with no chance of resurrection- no impossible fix. Just the sudden silence in Spock's own mind; the absence of a consciousness he knew as well as his own for over three decades, which had lingered for almost eight more during Jim's time in the Nexus. Jim Kirk was gone. He'd told Jim once not to grieve for him and until this moment never truly understood the flash of incredulity Jim's mind had broadcasted until Jim himself was gone. It was illogical to grieve; that did not mean it was not necessary. And yet life went on, and soon he was the only member of that original expedition living; the guardian of their secrets and the keeper of their legacy. And he lived, because not to do so would be illogical, because the final echo in his mind from Jim's voice was simply, "Live long and prosper." And Spock never disobeyed his captain- not really. Which led him to pilot a very Jim-like mission to save Romulus, sixteen years after Jim's death, and almost a century since Spock had last laid eyes on him. A decision that, at this moment, he is regretting deeply. The loss of Romulus is catastrophic. His capture by Nero is logical; the punishment is beyond thinking. 2. "Spock," Nero spits, vibrating and mad. Spock is learning that it has been twenty five years since the Romulans came through from the guard holding his shoulder; as though Spock is going to do anything more than stand and die. He was too late; perhaps it is fitting (logical) that he die. And yet Nero's hand clenches around his jaw, brings his face too close, close enough that Spock can see the lines of red in his eyes and the jagged edges of the tattoos which seem from afar smooth. It is a closeness that is too intimate, and he lingers there, his hand touching Spock's skin, and Spock does not hear the words he speaks, but instead feels the depth of his grief. "I killed Jim Kirk's father," Nero whispers, and those words hit. The implications of that- that this universe could lack Jim, Jim, is- "Does that affectyou?" Spock does not close his eyes, nor do his shoulders slump. But there are pieces of him, pieces which broke when Jim was lost to the Nexus, and then again sixteen years ago when he was gone, well and truly; pieces which Spock had only just managed to put imperfectly into place again, and nowThe thought that Jim never existed because of Spock shatters him again, and the sharp edges of his grief will tear him apart more than any Romulan instrument. They tear mercilessly at the confines of logic. Jim. "Now, you'll watch as I did. As I watched Romulus destroyed, you'll watch. Because now I have the red matter." "Nero, if it's me you want, you have me. Spare Vulcan." They are Jim's words, so long ago, aimed at another madman in Khan. "I want you to suffer," Nero tells him, so urbane, so companionable- so homicidal. "As I have." "You are in this universe- you could warn Romulus- "

"SHE'S ALREADY DEAD!" he screams, the facade of urbane evil shattering to reveal the madness underneath, shocking enough to make even his crew flinch. "I have waited for twenty-five years for this- " The second in command steps forward, and Spock is marooned on Delta Vega- too cold a planet for Vulcans to spend any prolonged period of time.

"How did you find me?" Where is the rest of the landing party? Surely Doctor McCoy is not far behind with hypos and complaints of hypothermia. It is impossible- Jim is impossible. That here, in Spock's darkest moment, it should be Jim who comes to him is typical, actually.

"How did you know my name?" Jim demands after scrambling to his feet, He considers standing there, waiting for the cold to overtake him (already he recovering with typical alacrity. is turning sluggish and tired), but there is, as Jim would say, always a Of course: he is nearly two hundred years old- it is not logical to expect that chance, and surrender is not an option. Jim should know him, and so he offers the phrase which has always defined And so he pulls the coat from the pack Nero transported down with him and them, although, as young as Jim is, it is possible that he has not yet reached the correct level of familiarity with Spock's counterpart: heads for a cave, standing in the mouth and monitoring Vulcan in the sky. "I have been, and always shall be, your friend." Suddenly it begins to cave in on itself. There is screaming in the back of his mind- terrified screaming, and then that thrum of the collective Vulcan Jim laughs incredulously. "What? Uh- hah- Look, I- uh. I don't know you, consciousness is simplyand- " He has the look of a man defeated- or near to it. He has the look of Jim Kirk preparing himself to twist the very fabric of the universe with the It is as though in place of a hundred voices, there is now a whisper. Out of illogic of his actions. his time, alone- billions dead. "I am Spock." It occurs to him that perhaps this Jim does not yet know him; He does not know how to process it- how does one that if he is, in fact, as young as Spock estimates, it will be nearly a decade It seems suddenly so logical that Nero should go mad at the destruction of until he receives his commission for the Enterprise. He himself may be in his planet. Mad enough blame the blameless, to wait for twenty-five years, space with Pike, and yet all of Starfleet would have converged upon Vulcan to seek vengeance in the place of doing something constructive. as soon as the distress beacon went out: it is not illogical to suppose that Part of him burns as though the plak tow has overtaken him: his blood burns Jim has at the very least heard of him. not in defeated sorrow but in anger, genuine and terrible, and he does not That is logical, and it eases the sting of Jim not knowing him- of Jim not move for fear of what he will do. There is a Starfleet base on this planet, and smiling and saying "Of course, Spock." Spock is in no mood to be kind, even to those who do not deserve his rage. Jim frowns at him, looks him up and down; piercing, evaluating based upon For an hour, he sits in front of the fire in the cave, watching the ice melt and a familiar model; so they do know each other. "Bullshit." glisten at his feet. Meditation is useless- for the nearly two hundred years of And that is the moment Spock knows that this universe's Jim is hardly his his life he has controlled himself, but he does not know that he is strong enough to control himself in the face of this, and so he sits, where he will not own. But it is enough, and Spock turns, resisting the urge to take him by the arm, and says, "Come. I have a fire." be tested nor tempted. Jim follows, settling across from him, brooding on his own thoughts even It is impotent rage, which makes it all the worse- he can do nothing except while tracking Spock with his curiously blue eyes as Spock puts more wood be sure that Nero will now plot course to Earth, because as much as he blamed Spock, he also blamed the Federation, and after Vulcan, Earth was onto the fire. It is illogical that a twenty-something Jim Kirk should make him nervous, and yet he is. the next great symbol of that body of governance. Earth will fall, and Nero will fell every planet in the Federation and then turn to Klingon, and there will be no one- no one to stop him. And Jim Kirk never existed. A panicked shout and the roar of a beast jolt him from his thoughts, and he stands, grabbing a piece of burning wood and running towards the source of sound- not thinking, grateful simply for an excuse to act. The creature flees at the flame, and Spock turns back to the foolish humanoid who was almost eaten, his anger growing again steadily- who would be so stupid as to venture so far from their base? Where was this idiot when Vulcan was vanishing from the sky? His rage is illogical, and yet in the seconds it takes him to turn from the creature's retreating form back to the humanoid, it has reached near-impossible levels. He turns and looks down and Jim pants before him, on his back, and it is- Jim is not yet thirty. Spock has never seen him so young. Jim exists. "James T. Kirk." He cannot help it- something within him is being overtaken entirely without his consent by nothing less than joy, Vulcan for the moment fading into the background. The captain must have been looking for survivors and picked up on his life sign, beamed down and, inevitably, found himself in a predicament- Nero arrived later in the year of Jim's birth, and Winona must have survived either pregnant or in a shuttle- . The anger is dissipating in the face of Jim as though he were a sun melting the snow away "Excuse me?" Jim demands, unnerved. "It is remarkably pleasing to see you again, old friend. Especially after the events of today," Spock offers, finding he wishes the comfort of Jim's voice. Wishes to draw Jim from wherever his mind is and focus him on the here, the now, with Spock. "Ah- look, I appreciate what you did for me today, but you should know that you- other you- and I? We're not getting along at the moment. You fucking marooned me here for mutiny." Jim is giving off waves of being angry; furiously, inescapably angry, and yet tinged with guilt, which is interesting. "Mutiny?" Why should he- this is most irregular. "Yes." "You are not the captain?" He cannot even comprehend this. Jim- not the captain of the Enterprise isillogical. "No, no-um- " there is a flash of bitterness there, fascinating "- you're the captain. Pike was taken hostage." "By Nero." "What do you know about him?" He has Jim's full attention now, having revealed himself as useful, with insight to give that might assist the captainthe future captain, in this universe. "He is a particularly troubled Romulan." He moves to meld, and Jim, after a quick glance at him, tilts his face up to be more accommodating. Fascinating.

Jim's mind is unexpectedly welcoming given that this is not his Jim, and Spock realizes he was unprepared for the fact that Jim might have melded before- his shields are not up as well as they ought to be. In his state of emotional compromise, in the face of James T. Kirk, Spock knows that he has no secrets, should Jim wish to find them. And yet Jim is as giving as he has ever been- for all that he may be gleaning from Spock's mind, he allows Spock the same courtesy, and for all Spock wishes to learn about this universe, about this Jim, he focuses on the task at hand and once he has passed on the information which is relevant for Jim to know (and information he is sure that it is not relevant for him to know, and most likely in direct violation of the Prime Directive), he disengages. A wrenching sob escapes Jim, and he turns away. "Forgive me, emotional transference- " Spock begins. "Is an effect of a mindmeld, I know," Jim gasps, scrubbing at his face and turning away, grieving as Spock cannot allow himself to grieve. "Going back in time you changed all our lives," Jim says, but it seems not to be accusatory, and Spock is not entirely sure that the "you" is not referring to both himself and Nero, collectively as a unit. Jim is simply absorbing data, vocalizing the most important fact. "Jim we must go. There is a Starfleet outpost not far from here." "Wait. Where you came from- how did we meet?" A strange question, but one Spock is willing to humor him and answer. "Upon your appointment as Captain of the Enterprise to replace Captain Pike. I was your First Officer. We met three months before the five year expedition took place." Jim stares at him. "You didn't bully me into Starfleet." "No. I was under the impression that you joined Starfleet in order to follow in your father's footsteps." Jim continues to stare, and then shakes his head. "Right. Let's go, find this Starfleet outpost and hope Spock hasn't put it out on all frequencies that I'm a pain in the ass he's marooned. Or that Uhura didn't listen to him," he adds, somewhat doubtfully. Spock frowns. So they are all there- or at least three of them are there, on the Enterprise, and yet fundamentally there is a difference which must be corrected. Spock does not know this universe, but he does know himself, and knows alternate versions of himself; he needs Jim Kirk, and he is not meant to be a commander. Jim Kirk is meant to be the captain of the Enterprise, and Spock cannot imagine a universe where he is not meant to be at his side. It is illogical. 3. Spock had heard tales of Montgomery Scott from Starfleet for years before meeting the man. Arrogant, troubled: a genius, but best put on individual projects in isolated areas, as he would be a detriment to any crew. Keep him solitary and give him math and a lab and he would be, if not happy, content. Admirals had flinched when Jim had drawn Montgomery Scott out of isolation. They had nearly balked when Jim made him chief of engineering, but it was Jim Kirk, and as far as Spock knows he was rarely denied anything, by anyone. Spock had never understood their concern, because Mr. Scott had been invaluable on the Enterprise, keeping up both morale and the alcohol content, working faster than, as he was so fond of reminding everyone, Humanly possible. This universe's Montgomery Scott is straight from those reports- sorry, but not very, for putting a dog into transwarp stasis, and bright enough to take Spock being from the future in stride, protesting only when he remembers

he is meant to be a skeptic. His reaction to Jim is immediate and trusting, perhaps drawn, as Spock is, to the fact that Jim is a picture of expectant competence: he expects Spock to perform at maximum capacity and therefore Spock does, and he expects Mr. Scott is also reacting to that aura which Jim was always so good at projecting. Jim Kirk is excellent, Spock reflects, at marshaling the talents of others. 4. "You're coming with us, right?" Jim asks. "No, Jim, that is not my destiny." It is dangerous for him to come- he has lived that life, it is not for him to affect what is yet to come any more than he already has. "Your dest-" Jim breaks off, obviously frustrated. How curious, that he should show all emotions so freely- Spock cannot help remembering how his Jim Kirk opted for incredulity instead of frustration. "My- the other Spock is not going to believe me, only you can explain what happened"Under no circumstances is he to be made aware of my existence. You must promise me this," Spock replies, feeling a sense of urgency. He knows, from brushing the mind of Jim- of this Jim- that he and Spock's young counterpart are involved. The extent to which is uncertain in Spock's mind; possibly because it is uncertain in Jim's own mind. He does know that if he is acting as Captain, it means he has not yet realized the extent to which Jim Kirk is meant to be captain of the Enterprise. Jim has yet to prove it; Spock has yet to be forced into seeing it. Spock has no illusions that he could have been a competent captain; his past work with cadets assures him of that. He also knows that Jim's talent for defying all of the odds, for inspiring loyalty and courage in his crew, is not a talent Spock ever possessed. "You're telling me I can't tell you that I'm following your own orders? Why not, what happens?" "Jim this is one rule you cannot break. To stop Nero, you alone must take command of your ship." He sees Jim's brain form the inference that somehow space/time would rend apart. Exaggerating. "How, over your dead body?" he snorts, but he's thoughtful, now. Something in his chin has hardened, and Spock feels a twinge of sympathy, he supposes, for his younger self. He recalls the incident Omicron pod plants, in which Jim provoked him into a blind rage. Jim is the only person who has ever provoked Spock into such a fevered emotional response; he has no doubt that this Jim will be just as successful. "Preferably not. However, there is Starfleet regulation 6-1-9." "States that any command officer who is emotionally compromised by the mission at hand must resign said command," Jim finishes, once again surprising him. "So I have to- he goddamn marooned me because I was emotionally compromising him! This time it'll be over my dead body!" Spock stares at him, troubled. "You must get me to show it," he emphasizes finally. He does not think that security personnel will allow Jim to be killed- he always managed to rouse himself, and the crew was always adept at intervening in their own ways. "Jim. Nero requires immediate attention; he is far too dangerous to waste any time." He nods as Scotty finishes programming, settling, and Spock turns to the controls. It will be all right. "What you're doing right now?" Jim asks as he braces in the transporter mechanism, "It's cheating." "A trick I've learned from an old friend." The grin is faint, but real, and Jim straightens, his mind moving away and to the next problem. "Live long and prosper." He has never meant it more.

5. He and Keenser take a shuttle to Earth, and Spock settles in Starfleet's temporary housing as a refugee while Keenser impatiently waits Mr. Scott's return, muttering about abandonment and a lack of gratitude. Spock watches as the crew from the Enterprise arrive, stepping off the shuttle to Earth, makes note of the closeness of Jim and his younger self: there is a familiarity in their movements which confirms what he has suspected. He and Jim took longer to reach that level of familiarity, but it explains some of Jim's reactions- explains the lack of hesitation at a mindmeld. Explains why his younger self would have felt emotionally compromised by Jim. He knows that if it had been him attempting to execute a logical plan after losing his planet, the prospect of a rebellious Jim Kirk would have been vexing to the point of madness: to factor into that tenuous situation an emotional investment (if not a bond) would have made pushed him to the precipice of emotional reactions, which he could not afford. He would not have been able to change what happened on Vulcan, nor have been logically motivated to give up his command; thus the logical reaction would have been to remove the volatile element: Jim. He feels more secure in having determined this: he could not understand why Jim was marooned, possibly because Jim himself didn't fully understand- mistaking the conflict for a flare of temper. Looking at the transmission he can see that Uhura, Chekov, Sulu, Scott, Chapel, and McCoy are all arranged behind them. Spock feels a sense of satisfaction: Vulcan is lost, he himself is an anomaly; an impossible thing. But this image, this arrangement of talent which impacted a galaxy in ways that were still being felt nearly a century later, is the most solid thing he has: if this exists, then all is not lost. It is a rock which he can build a life upon. He attends the captain's ceremony, and indulges himself in a moment of wistful frivolity as Jim turns to look at those assembled with a grin which, while dearly familiar, can only be described as "cocky". "Thrusters on full" 6. "You have to talk to him- you- him," Jim says over video comm. His bruises are fading, and he looksharried. "He's convinced he has to go back and I" "You cannot do it without him," Spock replies, understanding. His younger self had thought to progress without Jim and all had nearly been lost; Jim understood that to progress without Spock would result in the same catastrophe. "You must convince him- your destinies are intertwined," Spock urges.

"I am not our father." He turns, and Spock sees some confusion on his younger self's face behind the grief and torment. He never could keep things from showing in his eyes; not from those who knew how to look. "There are so few Vulcans left we cannot afford to avoid each other." "You are the mind which melded with his." An interesting statement; more interesting that Jim and Spock had melded after the events with Nero and yet Jim was still unable to convince Spock to come with him. "Yes. I had not been aware you could detect it." He pauses, wondering if he should press the point. It cannot hurt, to remind him of his attachment to Jim. "It took us many years to reach what you have accomplished." "The trajectory of this universe is somewhat altered from your own. I am curious- how did you persuade him to keep your secret?" "He inferred that universe-ending paradoxes would ensue should he break his promise." If there is one consistency in all universes, Jim Kirk has an avid imagination and can be counted upon to extrapolate the most fantastic conclusions from any given data set. "You lied." As appalled as Saavik, or any young Vulcan Spock has ever encountered has ever been; Vulcans, after all, do not lie. "Ohhh. I I implied." He shrugs philosophically. Implications, exaggerations; tricks he learned from Jim. So much of who he has become is due to his friendship with Jim Kirk. He cannot imagine who he would be without him. "A gamble." His younger self ruminates on the possibilities that option has made available to him- Spock sees the moment he realizes that it does not matter, because he has elected to stay behind. "An act of faith," he corrects as if he has noticed nothing. "One I hope that you will repeat in the future with Starfleet." "In the face of extinction it is only logical that I resign my Starfleet commission and help rebuild our race." He says it by rote: he has repeated it often, and the hint of annoyance speaks to the fact that he has spoken of it often specifically to Jim. "And yet you can be in two places at once. I urge you to remain at Starfleet." He notes, and yet chooses to ignore, the drawing together of Spock's brows in irritation. "I've already located a suitable planet on which to establish a Vulcan colony. Spock, in this case do yourself a favor. Put aside logic: do what feels right." He gives him time to realize that it is not just permission; it is logical. When he sees the clearing of Spock's face he smiles to himself. There, Jim, he thinks. "Since my customary farewell would appear oddly self-serving, I shall simply say: good luck."

Jim is quiet, and Spock watches as the corners of his mouth twist unhappily, Spock lifts his hand in answer, and Spock turns. There are matters to turn and finally he makes eye contact again and his eyes are so very blue. to; a colony to establish. "I can't," he says softly. He is defeated in every line of his body- the slump 8. of his shoulders, the slant of his eyebrows, the curve of his neck. He is defeated, and is asking Spock for help. It is a trifling matter, set against the background of the events of the last year (the last twenty six years). His loss is inconsequential; dwelling upon it Spock never could deny Jim anything, not when Jim was so defeated; not is a waste of resources and thus illogical. The person he mourns has never when Spock was to be the ace up his sleeve. existed here, not as Spock knew him, and it is illogical to the point of being Besides, it is illogical for both he and his counterpart to stay on the new foolish to mourn that which never was. colony. But as Jim would say, "So what?" He gives in. The cruelest truth is that a small part of him wishes Nero had killed him- the 7. part of himself which is most Human, which has curled into the pit of his He steps off the shuttle, and heads for the space dock where he presumes stomach and lies in wait for his most vulnerable moments, moments when he will find Spock. the black of space is too cold and too quiet, when the knowledge that he has outlived those dearest to him becomes too pressing, too true to ignore. "Father," a voice calls. Surely his voice was never like that: what sort of influence would shift one's vocal chords into a mid-range register? And he does not look like his father, surely.

Living, he is doomed to watch a life he never led unfold. It is illogical to be jealous of oneself, and yet he would find himself hard-pressed to turn Jim down if the offer was extended; if he were invited once again to sit in his old chair. It would violate all kinds of rules, not to mention the Prime Directive, but he isregretful. The fact that he and Jim never said "goodbye" makes this new reality all the more difficult to endure- this is not his Jim, and yet he is, inevitably, James Tiberius Kirk. He wonders how Jim would deal with it; if it had been him to hurtle across time to a universe so changed. If he would have adopted a separate identity and moved on, forward. He imagines Jim would have done so with far more enthusiasm than Spock himself feels. And yet over time the grief lessens. He is distracted without time to contemplate his losses and loneliness as he assists in settling New Vulcan; commissioning Starfleet's Corps of Engineers to create new buildingshomages to what was lost, but not recreations. They will never forget, but it is not logical to attempt to recreate what is gone: logic, now more than ever, is their driving force. The aching loneliness of all Vulcans compensates for his own: he lost his world, and yet so too did all Vulcans. Their entire universes have been as confused and altered as his has, and there is a strange comfort in the presence of survivors. Those Vulcans not compelled to stay with Starfleet and protect the galaxy have come to New Vulcan as though drawn, wanting to claim it as their own, to know the place the next generation will come from; to make sure the old is not forgotten. The two moons pose new challenges in creating the architecture; their own calendar must be adjusted for the difference in the time this planet takes to rotates on its axis (.04 minutes slower than Vulcan) and around its sun (483 days, rather than the usual 512). Theories must be made about how it will affect Pon Farr (speculation is that the biological imperative will be confused and go into overdrive, and it seems to be the case for much of the population. There will be many children on New Vulcan in a years' time, though he suspects there would have been even if not for Pon Farr). More than these logistical considerations, Spock finds comfort in the fact that Jim, any Jim, is in this universe. It makes it easier to exist, somehow. He sometimes finds himself thinking, illogically, Jim, we were never so reckless, as though he could ruminate on their younger counterparts with his own after news of the Enterprise's exploits reach New Vulcan. T'Pring had told him when he entered his first Pon Farr that she did not want him because he was becoming too well-known among Vulcans. However wellknown he was in his own universe, he cannot imagine that he was as known and respected as this universe's Spock. The fact that he saved Earth; that he evacuated the Elders, that he destroyed Nero make him something Vulcans have always been too logical to have but the people on Earth know well: a hero. It amuses Spock to no end to hear his younger self praised so.

What does surprise him is that, when he comes to visit on their arrival (so as to get it over with, and return to his own home and business, curiosity sated), it is in a location undesirable to most Vulcans, who prefer dry heat to that which may be tainted by proximity to the grey-green ocean. "Spock!" Jim calls, waving at him. Spock moves through the cool, open interior of the home and out to the plaza where his younger self is sitting in a chair. Spock takes the chair next to him, and they nod to each other. "Next year, Iowa," Jim says, stripping off his shirt and making a face at the heated air. "I'm not moving," he announces to the planet at large, though there is no one to hear him but the two of them. "I am going into that water and I am not coming out. The gravity here is a bitch, and it's hot." It is not his Jim. His Jim was far more concerned with appearances- with the respect of those around him. This Jim walks about barefoot and shirtless, and yet his comprehension of Vulcans and their culture is far deeper than his Jim's was. Jim tried, and after twenty years they had achieved the level of mutual understanding that their younger selves now enjoy. It is difficult not to be jealous when he thinks of the years he and Jim lost in comparison. "He was a bartender," his younger self offers, following his gaze to Jim, who is wiggling his toes in the red sand of New Vulcan, stripped down to inappropriately small swim trunks which he wears without embarrassment as he examines the ground curiously. It is not quite the right color; more purple than orange, and neither is it the correct texture; a bit more granular than the smooth dust-like sand which swirled around Vulcan with summer winds. It is close enough to be comfortable, however, and Spock is content with it. "A bartender," he repeats, attempting not to sound dubious. Jim was only ever a Starfleet captain, even when they were promoting him and he was retiring. "Who did advanced mathematics in his head." "He was a riddle you were compelled to solve," Spock realizes, and that is familiar. Jim Kirk in any universe is a puzzle that Spock in any universe will want to take apart to its base components: his inability to do so completely is what made Jim so dear. Familiar and yet surprising. T'hy'la. He turns at the silence, only to find that his younger self is smiling slightly as Jim floats on his back in the calm water- a feat no Vulcan has ever succeeded in. "Yes." "Have you?" He is genuinely curious, as Their familiarity surpasses that which Spock and Jim shared even after three years of romantic involvement; theirs is not a courtship but a relationship, and Spock speculates that it is possible that, given three years of involvement prior to their time on the Enterprisehe may have finally discovered the secret to Jim. His younger self turns from his rapt contemplation of Jim, who is, for once, doing nothing extraordinary or attention-grabbing, to look at Spock. "I am still trying."

On the Enterprise's second year into her mission, Jim sends him a message "T'hy'la," Spock says quietly. saying they'll be staying on Vulcan for their two week mandatory leave while His younger self turns to him, startled, and then nods perfunctorily: it is not the Enterprise is refitted. It is the first time in two years Jim has contacted something they speak of; it is unlikely something he is yet comfortable him: he wonders if he is being given the opportunity to be off-planet. acknowledging (he is, after all, so very young). "Yes." Spock inquires where they will be staying: he would welcome them into his Yes. home gladly, but he is not certain that he could endure it. It is a strange thing; he feels curious. Intrigued, and protective, and yet it makes him He remembers. And somehow, it is enough. ache to even contemplate being around them. Second Star to the Right Jim's reply is that Sarek has acquired a home for Spock in their clan's waldorph region of Vulcan. As each Vulcan clan has their own area- as Earth had countries or states- and as Sarek is de facto leader of their clan, as T'Pau is Summary: the unified leader of the council, it does not surprise Spock that Sarek would When he says she got the planet in the divorce? He means it. have acquired a living space for his son. Work Text:

1. Thing about his name is, he hates it. His dad got to be "David", but he's "Leonard." The only people who call him that are the people he grew up with. That or Len, or Lenny. goddamn rednecks. McCoy's just fine. Can't do that, "Doctor" will be all right. Jim, are you fucking listening to this? 2. When he says she got the planet in the divorce, he means it. She got Jo, she got the house, she got their friends, the town- got his whole damn world.

she'd kept trying to carve out some time to talk, and he'd kept blowing her off. Really, it didn't come out of the blue at all. Only felt like it at the time because he was such a self-absorbed asshat. "I don't know you anymore," Jocelyn said late one night after he walked in the door- a goddamn ambush. "I don't know you, and the hell you know me." "Don't give me that shit," he'd snarled. "You go work out in that goddamn office from the crack of dawn- "

"Oh, you want to talk about careers? Let's talk about careers, Leonard! How about how you go in on your days off, you're on-call all the time- the only time you're home is when you're dead asleep! You're either at the hospital Thing is, they were that couple. They'd been kids together in the same small town. his dad was the local goddamn doctor with his own practice; her mom or you're at the practice. Jesus fucking Christ, Leonard! I could take it if it ran the corner shop. They'd started going together when they were 14, and was another fucking woman- how the fuck do I compete with medicine?" been married by the time they were 17. Not 'cause she was knocked up, but she yelled. They both glanced down the hall towards Jo's room, straining to hear her make a noise, but she didn't stir. "It's not a marriage." because he was off to med school the next year and it felt like if they didn't have something tangible it could all fall apart. No one told them having a And the thing was, he'd probably have come around to that. Divorces were ring on your finger wouldn't stop things from falling apart. hard as shit, but- they weren't really married, not anymore. They were Jo'd been a bit of a surprise four years after they got married. He'd only just barely roommates, and he was okay living like that but clearly Jocelyn wasn't. finished his baseline work in psychology, biology and pre-med and was into his residency when Jocelyn had commed him to say she was pregnant. He He was warming to it, even. Well. The wine was helping. And then her almost up and quit the program. lawyer came over with her goddamn laundry list of demands and he was in more of a Johnny Walker Blue kind of mood. She wanted full custody No. ("you're hardly ever here! She needs a stable environment!" "I liveHe made like he was thinking about up and quitting the program- he goddamnit, Jocelyn, I live in this fucking town!" "It's your postal address, wouldn't have. He'd spoken to his parents about it, consulted with the yes."); she wanted the house ("I made this- you sleep more nights in your director of the program. office!"); she wanted the dog ("The dog I picked out? Of course I want him!"). "Look, McCoy. You're the youngest guy in the program right now. Lots of our residents have kids in the program. Don't throw away your future 'cause "Lenny, you know I love you," Dad had said when she'd kicked him out of your wife is knocked up and you're having first-time-father syndrome," Dr. the house that he'd been paying for. "But this thing with Jocelyn's got damn Meldrew had said firmly. McCoy had nodded, smiled, shaken the woman's ugly. Maybe it's best if you left the practice for a while." hand, and decided to stay in, let the other residents take him out for drinks. McCoy had stared at him. That he never spoke to Jocelyn about such a life-altering decision should 3. probably have tipped him off that there was something broken in their relationship. But it didn't, and nine months later he was done his residency, A year later he gives up. He signs all the papers, signs his whole fucking life away, including his kid. He puts on a brown leather jacket, hops a shuttle to Jo was a pretty little baby tiny in his arms, and Jocelyn was frantically filing San Francisco (firmly doesn't think about all the goddamn ways he could applications with law schools in the area. die), and signs up for Starfleet. Dad'd told him to come work at his practice, and it became a father-son He's a celebrated surgeon: they want him so bad they don't give a fuck he outfit, which was fine. McCoy was still studying his ass off for his reeks of whiskey. psychologist certification. "Excellent," he says when the recruiter chirpily tells him that he's now The thing was, though, McCoy missed the menace of surgery, so on top of officially Starfleet-registered, and now he's going back to fucking school to classes and the practice, he consulted at the hospital- and by consulted he means that on occasion he was known to wrench the goddamn instruments learn interspecial biology and gravity-free surgery. out of people's hands and fix the mistakes he could see they were going to make. Made a bit of a name for himself while Jocelyn went to law school and his mom watched Jo. But every night he could came home and read her Peter Pan. He liked itsomething about the idea of never growing up; the idea that those of them who were trapped, lost- there was somewhere for 'em. Should have been another sign: that he was feelin' trapped and lost. That he was fucking identifying with goddamn Peter Pan. Jocelyn graduated with honors, and got accepted as an associate-lookingto-make-partner at Crane, Poole and Schmidt's Austin branch. By the time they got around to being a family well. It stopped clicking; he can't say for sure it ever did, out of high school. Hell, they were just kids. He was 27 when she asked for a divorce, Jo 5 and just starting school. In retrospect, he thinks he was maddest because she asked before he did. But he didn't notice it building up for five years, didn't notice her spending time at the office deliberately. Lots of shit he noticed later- with time to think about it and Jack Daniels in his hand. Like the fact that that whole weeks He needs a drink. The bartender gives him a whiskey on the house, and that's how McCoy meets Jim Kirk. Jim's not afraid of him at all- doesn't give a damn how pissed McCoy gets, and always gets him back to his dorm (he lives in a fucking dorm). Takes a few weeks, but McCoy can recognize another lost boy when he sees one, and he and Jim Kirk are the only two lost boys in all of fucking San Francisco. And Jim's there when McCoy calls, even if Jim insists on calling him "Bones" and- thing is, Jim doesn't draw his sob story out of him, and he sure as fuck doesn't pull Jim's out of him. It's organic- like, he couldn't tell you how he knows Jim's Daddy died on the Kelvin or that his mom was never around- he's got an older brother he loves but never really knew, and a shitfor-brains stepfather, but over the course of three years he learns it all. Feels like he's known Jim his whole damn life, and thing is-

He'll never say it out loud, but havin' to take care of Jim a bit? Keep him out the symptoms as they present. When it's not getting scary, it's fucking of brawls and make sure he's gettin' that fucking bike checked out regularly? hilarious. He's not gonna say it saved him. But, you know. Numb tongue. 4. The distress call goes out, and Jim's off duty, but he's got flop sweat and is After Jocelyn, he's not too interested in women. blind in his left eye and his hearing is going. McCoy gets him on to the At all. Enterprise. Not that that means he goes after cock, just- it was a real hard burn, and he ain't eager for another round. So when he meets Christine Chapel during a mock-surgery his second term at Starfleet Academy? He figures hey, maybe they'll just be friends. Won't be any big thing. She's small and blonde and doesn't swear. Exact opposite of Jocelyn- and he figures it's safe. She's not his type. Plus, she's engaged to some Starfleet scientist. Except that she tells him during mock-surgery that they got engaged because he's leaving for some fucking dot in the sky, and McCoy knows exactlyhow that goes. Hell, that's been him: you get engaged because it feels like there's no other thing to keep you together. Chapel doesn't think he's coming back, and even before he leaves she never wears the ring- not even on a necklace. It'd be reasonable to think she's doing it for the job if she didn't have this thumb ring she wears all the time. They're neither of them drunk the first time she kisses him. He asks her, of all damn things, if she's sure. She laughs at him, pushes him back on the bed and settles over him. Her fianc's been gone for 17 hours. It's not a regular thing. And he's not sure he's her only- she's his, but only because he can't be assed to go chase skirt. But it happens when they're both on top of the world, and it keeps it from going sour. Also makes them work better together; knowing each other intimately like that. Helps the tension between surgeon and nurse. Jim thinks it's hilarious. 5. The thing he realizes pretty quick about Starfleet is that they're all lost in some way. Not- no. The good ones, the ones who'll make something of themselves, who'll go into the history books- the ones who've got something to prove: they're the lost ones. Well-adjusted people don't do as well in Starfleet. They're all lost boys and girls, looking to find goddamn Neverland second star to the right and straight on to morning. He doesn't get why Jim doesn't join: Jim's as lost as any of them, if not more. That's why when Spock fucking bullies him into joining? McCoy just smirks. After he gets pissed over having to be hauled out of bed to testify to Jim'scharacter before a judge. That bastard's just lucky McCoy knew he was going back to Chapel, is all he's saying. 6. It's really just shit timing. When the distress beacon from Vulcan hits, McCoy is doing Jim's immunizations. They're supposed to do them a few months before any captaincy applications are even looked at, and no one but McCoy is allowed to touch Jim's immune system, because he's allergic to the fucking galaxy. "What the- what have you done?" Chapel demands, helping coax Jim down into a bed. She has a pair of black regulation pants on under her uniform, and for some reason it makes McCoy grin. Christine Chapel is about nine different kinds of amazing. "In the middle of his goddamn immunization regimen!" he snaps, turning to look at the doctor in charge. Puri, that asshole. He'll probably head down to Deck 6 to fuck off and not pay attention to the- all right, fine. They're not likely to see heat before they head off into space, but it's the principle. And then Jim's figured it out: it's a trap, they're heading for a goddamn trap, and wouldn't you know he's right; Uhura can confirm it and everything. "Shields up, red alert." "Arrival at Vulcan in 5 seconds. 432..1" And it's a goddamn- graveyard in space. Fragments everywhere of what used to be ships, of what used to be- there are people floating there. And then they're being hit and he's turning and running back down to the med bay because Jesus Christ. Chapel looks at him, and he does not have a moment of being absolutely fucking head-over-heels relieved she's not dead. T'Pon, one of the other nurses, says, "We lost Dr. Puri, and the chain of command- " "Let's make this easy," McCoy says, walking towards the disaster area. "I'm the head of the chain of command now. Get survivors up to deck 2- Chapel, you're in charge of mobilizing them. Perville, Savorsky, T'Pon, you're with me, we've got to look for survivors- " T'Pon lifts her eyebrow, but thank fuck doesn't go rational on him now. He holds up the Feinberger and scans for life forms- they find one operations officer who's still alive, but not for long. "Jesus fuck. All right, everyone head back." They pass a lot of operations personnel carrying the wounded, but he's down at least a third working space. The ones who are too far gone, who even he couldn't save (and even the ones he might be able to, in a clean lab, if he started right now) he sedates. T'Pon is conserving resources: she's just pinching them. Starfleet Medical will have their asses if they ever find out about this. He's heading back up to Deck two when Spock's voice says over the comm system, "Dr. Puri, report." "It's McCoy. Dr. Puri was on Deck 6, he's dead." "Then you have just inherited his responsibility as Chief Medical Officer." McCoy glances back at the bright orange of the fire contrasting with the calm blue of their still-functioning medical equipment, at the bodies of the people he can't save. "Yeah," he scoffs, turning back from the wreckage that used to be Deck 6. "Tell me something I don't know." "Doctor, we must evacuate, the air is becoming toxic and soon the ship's defenses will seal the area off to purify it," T'Pon tells him. He nods, and they struggle up a nearby Jeffries tube (fucking transporters aren't even working in this section).

There are old medicines and new medicines that would probably solve the problem, but McCoy just plays it by ear, administering cocktails that manage Deck 2 is still pristine, but now it's crowded as shit.

"We have Deck 1-3," Chapel reports. "We lost a lot of surgeons, thoughmost of us are Nursing staff." They have to make do. Nice thing about a crisis is it doesn't matter who's actually in the chain of command: people will follow the person who yells loudest. And that's always gonna be him. They end up with six Vulcan elders, Jim with a broken hand, Sulu with burns and a few cuts that are dying to be infected, and the news that Vulcan is destroyed and Pike is lost. T'Pon is doing her job very effectively. McCoy doesn't say he's sorry, but he does let her have the roll of gauze he was reaching for, and her eyes say she gets it. "Dr. McCoy, please report to the bridge for a senior staff meeting," Uhura's voice requests. "Goddamnit." He steps out and joins things already in progress. Jim is sprawled in the captain's chair, which makes McCoy pause for a moment before deciding he doesn't care, standing to Jim's right. Spock is the only one mobile, and McCoy thinks that that means something. "Have you confirmed that Nero is headed for Earth?" Spock is asking Uhura. "Their trajectory suggests no other destination, Captain," Uhura replies. At least she's fucking professional- Jim's a bad influence on the other two kids on the bridge, who are sprawled out. Sulu and Chekov. God. "Thank you, Lieutenant." Spock isn't here, though, McCoy can see he's already leaping ahead. "Earth might be his next stop but we have to assume every Federation planet's a target," Jim points out, looking at Spock, who is looking out the viewing screen. Jim doesn't seem to mind talking to his back, and Spock turns, steps around the console, pauses by Jim. "Out of the chair." god, could he sound any more indulgent? It's damn unnerving, and McCoy shifts his stance. Uhura joins him in standing. Only idiots slouch in chairs in crises. "Well, if ze Federation is a target, why didn't zey destroy us?" Chekov asks. He's really adorable, and it's really, really terrifying that he's in charge of anything. "Why would they? Why waste the weaponry, we obviously weren't a threat," Sulu scoffs, and yes, McCoy can see that, but then Nero is insane and"That is not it. he said he wanted me to see something: the destruction of my home planet." "How the hell did they do that, by the way? Where did the Romulans get that kind of weaponry?" And that would be the most troubling thing, the thing that they all should be thinking about. Romulans with the weaponry to destroy a planet, take out Starfleet'sfleet, and block transportation/communication. It's downright unnerving.

"As captain, he does know details of Starfleet's defenses," Sulu points out. "What we need to do is catch up to that ship. Disable it, take it over and get Pike back." Everyone's leaning towards him, ready to do it, but then Spock harshes the mellow with; "We are technologically outmatched in every way, a rescue attempt would be illogical." "Nero's ship would have to drop out of warp for us to overtake it," Chekov points out. Kid's got stones, McCoy'll admit. No one else wants to break into this conversation. "Well- then what about assigning engineering crews to boost our warp yield?" "Remaining power and crew are being use to repair radiation leaks on the lower decks and- " "Okay- " Part of him wants to tell Jim to shut up, that Spock is the captain and that Jim is here by an accident and because of his own damn immune system's hypersensitivity to everything. Another part of him thinks that if Jim and Spock are whatever the fuck they are? Spock should keep his own fucking house in order. "- damage- " "- all right, all right- " "- to subspace- " "- Communication levels, with all due respect we cannot contact Starfleet"- There must be some way we can- " "- We must gather with the rest of Starfleet. Balance the terms of the next engagement." It's the first time he's looked at Jim since McCoy walked in. It's weird that he's here- it's weird that Spock's letting him be here. It is kind of hilarious that they talk over each other and don't even lose their train of thought, but still manage to listen to each other. They're married, and McCoy can't decide if he wants to puke or die laughing. "There won't be a next engagement, by the time we've "gathered" it will be too late." McCoy watches as Jim hits the point of maximum frustration. "Look, you say he's from the future, knows what's gonna happen, then the logical thing is to be unpredictable!" "You're assuming that Nero knows how things are predict how things are going to unfold, but on the contrary Nero's very presence altered the flow of history, beginning with the attack on the USS Kelvin and culminating in the events of today, thereby creating an entirely new chain of events that cannot be anticipated by either party." "An alternate reality." Uhura realizes, moving towards the center of the bridge. She's looking between them almost like she can't decide whose side she's on.

"Precisely." Spock looks at her almost like she's the only other smart person in the room. McCoy kind of wants to throw something at his smug ass head. "The engineering comprehension necessary to artificially create a black hole "Whatever our lives might have been, if the time continuum was disrupted may suggest an answer. Such technology could theoretically be our destinies have changed. Mr. Sulu, plot a course to the Laurentian manipulated to create a tunnel through space/time." He glances at Jim to system, warp factor 3." see if Jim's following this, and clearly Jim is, but that's not much help "Spock, don't do that. Running back to the rest of the fleet for a confab is a because Jim does theoretical math in his head for fun. massive waste of time- " It's kind of amazing that Jim can absorb that "Damnit, man, I'm a doctor, not a physicist," he snaps. "Are you actually they're living in an alternate reality, fighting a man in a ship from the future suggesting they're from the future?" who really seems to have it in for Spock, and decide all of that doesn't matter and pick up right where he left off. "If you eliminate the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." "Following the orders issued by Captain Pike when he- " "How poetic." Jesus fucking Christ. Time travel. He just knows that this is going to give Jim ideas. He knows it. Goddamnit. "Then what would an angry, future Romulan want with Captain Pike?" Luckily, Jim already has a crisis to deal with. "Pike ordered us to go back and get him. Spock, you are captain now- " And ah yes, there it is. To Jim, being captain means making the impossible decisions, it means doing what's right instead of what's "correct," damn the costs. Spock, McCoy's pretty sure, is all about by-the-book, maximum

caution, minimum risk. Spock feels responsible for the safety of everyone on the right one? You know, back home we got a saying: if you're gonna ride in board- Jim will trust everyone to do their jobs to the best of their abilities. the Kentucky Derby then you don't leave your prize stallion in the stable." "I am aware- " Spock begins, looking up at Jim from the side- weird fucking guy. "- you have to- " "- of my responsibilities." "Every second we waste he's getting closer to Earth's door!" "That is correct, and why I am instructing you to accept the fact that I alone am in- " "I will not allow us to go backwards- " McCoy flinches- hell, everyone on the bridge flinches. Jim's scary as shit when he's angry, and Spock's going to make that Russian kid piss his pants if he doesn't bring that goddamn eyebrow back down. "- command. I alone-" "- instead of hunting Nero down!" Spock stands, and he's taller than Jim. It's fucking weird to notice that then. "Security. Escort him out." He could, probably, have done something. But the fact that he doesn't know what is kind of the point, and besides, Jim has both guards down and unconscious and is turning into Spock before the pinch comes- they move fast. Both of 'em. Jesus Christ, Jim. "Get him off this ship." "Wait a goddamn second," McCoy snaps, because it's Jim. Two other security officers move to bar him. "You want to have Angoliak flu? He's fucking allergic to every damn thing, it'd be just our luck that goddamn Vulcan nerve pinch would send him into a coma or trigger cardiac arrest." They let him crouch and scan Jim, but everything looks normal. He can feel it: everyone waiting for him to object Jim's marooning on Delta Vega. But Spock's captain, and there's a chain of command, and Jim was never supposed to be on board. There's a Starfleet base on the planet, and hell, at least there he'll be safe. Never mind the fact that they're all going to die without him. He heads back down to Medical after- doesn't want to see Jim launched. He ends up having to do three surgeries in fifteen minutes, and it takes his mind off of things until Spock requests to see him. He does another- leg reattachment for a kid who was on Deck 6, and then heads up. Doesn't he know McCoy has a job to do, the bastard? "You wanted to see me," he prompts. "Ah, yes, Doctor. I am aware that Jim is a friend of yours, I recognize that supporting me as you did must have been difficult." Like he and Jim haven't been fucking for over a year. Like McCoy is the only one of them "emotionally compromised." "Is that a 'thank you'?" he sneers. "I am simply acknowledging your difficulties." Bones exhales, looks around. It's been a long fucking day, he's got kids dying on the table downstairs because he's up here having a little heart-toheart with a man who doesn't even know what a heart is. "Permission to speak freely, sir. "I welcome it." "Do you?" he snorts. "Okay, then. Are you outta your Vulcan mind?" The look on his face would be almost funny, if they weren't all about to die. "Are you making a logical choice sending Kirk away? Probably. But "A curious metaphor, doctor, as a stallion must first be broken, before it can reach its potential." "My god, man. You could at least act like it was a hard decision!" He doesn't even know what to do with Spock's response. They all know Spock was gearing Jim up to be a captain, and the way he says that- Jesus. If this is some kind of training exercise McCoy's going to choke them both. "I intend to assist in the effort to reestablish communication with Starfleet." Ah, not about Jim, then. Okay. "However, if crew morale is better served by my roaming the halls weeping, I will gladly defer to your medical expertise. Excuse me." He goes to talk to security personnel. McCoy doesn't even know what the point of this conversation was. "Green-blooded hobgoblin." 7. The Enterprise has 23 Vulcans- 18 now. And the thing is, of all the Humanoid species, Vulcans are the most you either know Vulcan biology and physiology or you don't. Databanks are full, but they're not highly specific, and Vulcans are telepathic and that changes fucking everything. He realizes as he does surgery on an Elder who'd lost part of her leg and is currently trying to bleed out on him that what he needs, if they ever survive this, is M'Benga. Geoffrey Fucking M'Benga, who studied at the Vulcan Science Academy, who should be here instead of fucked off wherever he is. He makes a mental note of it. McCoy's not- he's not good at calming people down. He's good at yelling at them and beating them into submission, but right now? When Jim (who a lot of these people know and like) has been marooned on Delta Vega and Vulcan just blew up and there's a ship they can't hope to fight, he doesn't have the right words. He can't yell their fears away, which just pisses him off more. He feels like a kid. He feels fucking lost. So he does surgery and he monitors recovery; he puts his psychology degree to good use. Honestly? When Jim asks him what he was doing during this time, McCoy won't really be able to tell him, because he's just on autopilot. Then, two hours later, Jim is back on board. And McCoy'd thought it couldn't get any worse. 8. Whatever fights he and Jocelyn had; whatever fights he's seen go bad between two people who love each other, he's never seen anything like this. Jim's not just being Jim, he's being deliberately, ruthlessly cruel, and Spock falls into the ditch Jim digs him. They all just stand there- those of them who know Jim and Spock are so damn confused and shocked it's like they've been hit by a phaser on 'stun'everyone else is just freaking out. Except maybe Papa Spock. "I like this ship! You know, it's exciting!" Oh god, McCoy's going to kill that Scot. "Well, congratulations, Jim. Now we've got no captain and no goddamn first officer to replace him," he growls, annoyed, now. Deeply relieved- god, he could kiss Jim- but this isn't how a chain of goddamn command works, and without the chain of command they've got no order- and then things'll really be anarchy. "Yeah we do." "What? "Pike made him first officer," Sulu says, watching Jim cross and sit in the captain's chair, sprawling and owning it the way Spock didn't.

"You gotta be kidding me." He can't fucking believe this- Jim just gave up on 11. the one good thing in his goddamn life (and god help him, he's calling Spock He has seventy five missed calls. Jim's good thing) to take over the ship. Eight of them are from Jo, seventeen of them are from his mother, and one "Thanks for the support." is from Jocelyn. "I sure hope you know what you're doing, Captain," Uhura snaps, but she sits at her post: they all take their posts. Jim's captain, and they're all to fucking shell-shocked and wrung out to interrogate that too deeply. "So do I." And the thing about Jim is- he leads by committee. McCoy's got no illusions that the final decision will come down to Jim (god help them all), but they're all talking over each other as soon as Jim gives them an opening to argue about their next move. It's just typical that it's the fucking kid who's got the best idea. When Spock walks back through the door, offers to go on the suicide mission himself, McCoy wants to throw something. One of them, maybe. Idiots. "I won't allow you to do that, Mr. Spock." god, they're so formal. But there's a hint of a smile on Spock's face, and that's it. McCoy gives up. They're fucking impossible to figure out, and apparently suicide missions are like foreplay to them. Fucking Jim. 9. It probably means he's a bad parent. But he doesn't think about Jo- really consciously think about Jo, until they rise out from being Titan and begin firing on the Narada; until they're almost sucked into the black hole. A part of him, up to this point has somehow figured they'd pull through: but he doesn't see a way out, and it's not really his way to be optimistic. What kills him is that he'll never get to see her grow up: he'll never get to meet the person she's going to be. He'll never have gotten to say "good-bye." Turns out? He doesn't have to. 10. Jim needs a full regimen of antibiotics and healing when they beam back aboard, but Chapel has to do it because McCoy's busy making sure Pike's not a quadriplegic. "You're not going to like this prognosis- I don't think I can save them," he mutters, looking at the readouts. Hell, Pike won't be a quadriplegic; but the legs are beyond even McCoy's ability to fix. Pike looks at him. "They did good, those two." It takes him a second- he thinks maybe Pike's reacting to the sedative strangely and talking about how his legs did good. Hey- he's been treating Jim for years, he's used to strange reactions and stoned ramblings. But then he realizes that no, Pike's not talking about his legs at all. "I'm talking about you losing your goddamn legs," McCoy points out dryly, "and you want to talk about the epic love story of Spock and Jim?" "They saved the planet." "Probably means you should appoint Jim your successor." "Not Spock?" "No," McCoy says, and Pike smiles slightly. "You know, he said the exact same thing." "Jim?" "Spock." "Daddy. Daddy. Daddy. You- look, I know you're going to listen to this, so when you do, I want you to comm me right back. I know you're okay. You're okay?" He's pretty sure Jo didn't mean to make the last bit a question, but he comms her immediately. "Jo." "Daddy." He can hear a dull sound like she's just sat down, and Jocelyn's voice in the background saying, "Oh my god, is that him? Leonard? Leonard, you motherfucker, is that you? You bastard!" "Mom, shut up!" Jo shouts, and McCoy winces. "Jo, I'm fine. Only a few bruises." "But- all the ships blew up and- " "Turn on the news. I'm pretty sure they're broadcasting our grand arrival on loop- " "Oh my god. Oh my fucking god." "Joanna!" "Shut up, look! Look! You're on the holo! You're- Daddy, would it kill you to smile?" He figures she must be reassured that he's all right if she's nagging. "It might. Do you want to take that chance?" he asks as seriously as he can manage. "Not funny, Daddy. God." "Look, Jo, there's a shitton of debriefings to do- I'll talk to you later tonight." "On video." "On video," he agrees with a sigh as Uhura beckons impatiently. She's got a hand around Jim's arm and from the look of it she's about to cut off all the circulation. "Jo, I've really got to go. I love you, baby." "I love you too. Tonight," she emphasizes, and he agrees before disconnecting. The swarm of reporters and then the briefings (hours and hours of briefings before they're even allowed to shower, whichthey're all a bit ripe, what with the day they've had), and then they're released. There'll be a ceremony, but McCoy doesn't give a shit. They're alive, and they got the bad guy, and he gets to talk to his daughter when he gets back to Jim's. 12. The weirdest thing (besides the fact that they fought what Jim's been calling "a particularly troubled Romulan" from the future) is the 20 or so Vulcan Starfleet cadets who come to them and ask to be assigned to the Enterprise. Okay, they come to Jim, but McCoy's in the apartment, so he feels like he's being asked, too. Jim asks one, Sadek or Saiek or S- something- k, why they're not heading to New Vulcan. "Starfleet needs competent personnel. We have ever been part of this Federation since its inception: we will not now withdraw from its most visible arm." Which makes sense, but just makes Jim even more annoyed with Spock, who seems to think that it's his duty to return- no, not return: to go to New Vulcan and breed or something.

McCoy also thinks that all the other Vulcans assume Spock is going to be on the Enterprise. The thought of Spock being any kind of a draw goes against everything McCoy stands for, but he supposes- if it was him, he'd want to make sure no other Nero ever happened, and even if he'd been on the ground, and had heard about the Enterprise- that's the ship he'd want to be on. McCoy'd want to be on Jim's crew even if he didn't know him; to be on the ship that survived and destroyed Nero; under the captain who managed it. It's he guesses even Vulcans feel that pull, they just probably couch it in "logical" terms. Even McCoy knows that Spock's becoming something of a Vulcan legend. Which is just fucking weird. The worst thing? The worst thing is that being in charge of the medical team is that he has to personally vet and approve every goddamn one of them. 13. Assembling a medical team would be a lot easier if Starfleet Command (and Starfleet Medical Command) would fuck the hell off. This is brought home when Chapel slams her hand against Jim's apartment door (because McCoy is not staying at the dorms, no way in hell), and informs him that she's been assigned to the Kennedy. "The hell they did," he growls. Chapel is his head nurse. He's got her nice and broken in to his style, and she's sure as hell got him used to hers. They click well under pressure, and their sexual tension is familiar and comfortable. He doesn't need goddamn distractions: he didn't sign on to the Enterprise initially to be its CMO- but enough people died he'd been promoted and fuck if he's not going to do a good job of this. God, he sounds like Jim. She lodges expedited formal protests and goes to Jim to lodge a formal expedited complaint with him (also playing the dead fianc card- apparently the gormless wonder was on one of the ships that blew up- unbeknownst to her until his personal effects showed up on her doorstep). Jim holds it up to McCoy and demands, "Wait, what the hell am I supposed to do with this? If you want her, go fight them yourself." Which McCoy takes to mean that no, Jim hasn't convinced the green-blooded bastard to join the crew as first officer yet, thanks for asking. First, McCoy goes to Starfleet Central Command and threatens to delay launch until he's redone everyone's blood work. That doesn't work, so he glares, and then goes to Jim. They both storm SCC. "Look, this is unbelievable, but we lost all Jim's immunization records in the damage on the Enterprise," McCoy says tells them. Not really, but Jim's criminal record is, apparently, merited, and then they'd gotten Scotty to double-check, so it fucking looks like Jim's immunization records really did go down with Deck 6. McCoy has them in his pocket on a datafile, but there's no need to tell them that. "I'm feeling very vulnerable," Jim says, tugging on his collar and clearing his throat. "Bones, I'm very concerned about this. Perturbed. I may in fact be perturbed." "So am I, Jim," McCoy agrees. They're the worst actors in the world, but there's not any chance that Jim won't actually let McCoy redo all of his records, and it's Starfleet legend that if there's something that no one else is allergic to? It's Jim. And the bastards know it, too. They also know that Commander Spock is not going to be any help in haranguing Jim back into line, and now-Admiral Pike thinks Jim's funny as all get out. They also know that this is a ploy: that they're being played, but there's not a damn thing they can do about it, so they give him Chapel, and what do you know? Jim's immunization records magically reappear. He feels bad there's no easy trick to getting Spock on board. 14. He goes to see Jo. He picks her up after school, and she screams at him in

sheer delight and then makes him tell her everything, tell her all about Jim, about Spock, about Nero. It feels- nice. Talking to someone about it who wasn't there but who isn't going to use it against him. She listens very seriously to his highly-edited version of his life these past few years, and then punches him in the arm. "What the hell?!" "You're such a jerk," she sighs. "You come visit me and then you leave for five years. Awesome. Buy me ice cream." He does, and ridiculous things that she probably doesn't need but he wants her to have; doting on her like he didn't know he'd missed doing. He has money; hazard pay, his promotion bonus, but not much of it is gonna do a damn bit of good where they're going. So if he wants to spoil his daughter what the hell? Jocelyn doesn't even yell at him when he brings home their daughter with bags full of tech and other things that apparently twelve year old girls like. "He didn't buy my affection, Mama," Jo groans, rolling her eyes at them so hard McCoy's pretty sure she's going to fall over. "He just primed the pump." "Clearly your daughter," he observes. She surprises him by hugging him. "You're sure you won't stay- " "No. I gotta stop by my folks', but then I've got to get back." She nods. "She misses you. You should try to get back to see her." "I will." He turns to get into the hovercar to head to his parents and then she says, "I asked her if she wanted to change her name when she was 10. To my name." He freezes; it's an unexpected attack. "She said she's a McCoy. I think it's her way of keeping you close." He doesn't know what to say to that, and she smiles faintly. "Go fuck off, Leonard." And he does. 15. He goes after M'Benga because T'Pon mentions that the Enterprise has the highest number of Vulcans of any Starfleet ship serving right now, and the highest concentration in Starfleet anywhere not on New Vulcan. M'Benga is a goddamn expert- went to the Vulcan Medical Academy and didn't even do that badly for himself. "I should be on New Vulcan!" M'Benga protests. "You're a goddamn surgeon, what're you gonna do that the Vulcans can't do better?" McCoy snaps back. "Mostly they're gonna need fertility specialists and biologists. I got a crew that's 13% Vulcan, and I didn't take that many courses. I got T'Pon in medical- the rest of them are in Science. C'mon, Geoffrey. Don't yank my dick." "God, McCoy," M'Benga groans. "You're such a philistine." "That's the jealousy talkin'." McCoy points at him and pours him another shot. Jim walks in the door. "I fucking hate Vulcans!" he shouts, and slams his door behind him. They're both quiet. "He's trying to recruit Spock to be his First Officer," McCoy explains. "Negotiations have gridlocked." "Ah." M'Benga's quiet for a minute. "He's the captain." "Yeah."

"Looks like you're going to need me more than New Vulcan. All right, McCoy. I'm on." "I'll drink to that," McCoy says, and toasts him. M'Benga laughs, knocks back the shot, and takes his leave, shaking his head.

"We'll find some other way! Uhura, have security prepare evacuation podsSpock, if you even think of pinching me, I will haunt your ass so hard you've got no idea- "

But in the meantime Scotty has crossed wires and moved crystals ("here! "Jim, if you're jerkin' off I'm going to make sure you can't get it up for the rest Hold this! It's all bloody spit-and-glue but she'll hold!") and then he shouts, "Captain! Back online!" of your- " "Jesus, Bones." Jim snorts. He's half-dressed, getting ready for bed. "M'Benga's on board." "Good. That's good." Jim nods. "Scotty says he's got the crew he needs, I got Cupcake kicked out- " "Do you even know his name?" "No, but that's not the point." "Right, carry on." "Uhura's working on the systems with Scotty so that Chekov can, you know, speak Russian to it without all the "Wictor Wictor" shit. Which, I admit, is hilarious, but not when it's my life on the line. Rand has duty rosters all done, your Chapel is getting all the females on some kick about pants or leggings under the uniform, which is fine, but I have no idea where I'm going to find a budget for it." He collapses theatrically onto his bed. "Went that well, huh?" "Jesus Christ, he's fucking impossible." "Jim, if you don't pick someone else they're going to try to saddle you with someone to keep an eye on things. I'm one of the oldest people on board and I'm only 31. We're none of us favorites, who you've got in the chain of command. They hate Scotty more than they're scared of you, sure, but I'm not exactly- " "Miss Congeniality?" "- their favorite- what?" "Old movie. Never mind. Look, fine, so I'll find someone in Sciences. Scotty's pushing Romaine. I think I had a few classes with her." Bones nods. What the hell do you say to that? 16. Once they're on the ship, pushed out into space, things settle. Scotty's a good drinking buddy. Jim and Spock are still fucking married, but no one's touching it with a ten-foot pole. Things are good. It lasts seven months: The entire ship is in chaos, caught in a real live Kobayashi Maru. He has to run down and pull Scotty out of the core room to keep him from getting radiation poisoning. Worse than he already has, that is. "It's completely offline, Captain!" Scotty shouts. "Warp drive's completely down if I could - " "No one," Bones breaks in, "is going into that goddamn room! The radiation poisoning will kill any human who walks in!"

"Sulu- " Jim begins, but there's the jolt (ah, inertial dampeners sacrificed to get them to warp). It's quiet after that, just scanning Scotty and everyone else before heading back to med to deal with the injuries from the hits they took (a mild concussion, three broken arms, a few bruised ribs), before Spock says, "Doctor McCoy, please join me in Captain Kirk's quarters. It is urgent." He takes off at a dead run with his bag in hand. "What the hell's wrong with him?" McCoy demands, because Jim's on his bed, twitching and white as a ghost, sweat a sickly sheen over his entire body. "A mind-meld gone awry," Spock says as McCoy opens his bag, shifting his hands on Jim's face, and Jim turns into him, breath rasping in his throat like he can't breathe. "It's killing him!" He's reading the results from the scan: Jim's heart is going too fast, his brain waves are off the chart, and his lungs aren't getting enough air. "That would be a correct assessment, Doctor." "Goddamnit, Spock we've got to get him to- " "If you will permit me," Spock snaps, and McCoy steps back because that was a goddamn emotional reaction. "Our minds," Spock says, "one and together. Touching, yet not touching. Apart, yet never apart." "Touching," Jim gasps, "yet not touching. Apart yet never apart" "We are one," he hears them say together. "Are you two getting married?" he demands, but they can't hear him at all. "I find myself desiring to find your stepfather and commit acts of violence against him," Spock manages. Jim laughs, helplessly, into the curve of Spock's neck. "Next time we dock at Earth, I'll take you to Iowa," Jim promises in that horrible breathy voice, and then they both kind of collapse into each other and McCoy calls for two stretchers, taking them to the med bay for monitoring. "I hate them so much," he tells Chapel. "Yes, I know you think you do," she agrees, pulling a blanket over them with a fond smile. "This is our chain of command!" he explodes. She raises an eyebrow at him, and seven hours later they resurface. "You goddamn motherfucking idiots!" Bones snaps. "Doctor," Chapel says in an amused voice, because she's always nearby when his rage reaches homicidal.

And then Spock's voice says, "As you are so fond of observing, Doctor: I am "Don't "Doctor" me, Chapel. These two idiots have been out for seven hours not Human." because neither one of them has an ounce of brains or logic in their fucking Which is true, but he is half-Human, and even most Vulcans have radiation heads!" sensitivity on par with Humans. There are a few recorded anomalies but"Chapel," Jim manages around a very dry throat. "The doctor will take two "Are you out of your Vulcan mind?" he snaps just as Jim shouts: shots of whisky and then about 8 ounces of Scotty's home brew." "Yes, Captain," she laughs, and steps out of the room. Hopefully he will end this day with that drink in his hand.

"Now, she's gone. What the fuck did you two- " "My alternate counterpart passed to Jim relevant information in order to obtain his cooperation via a mind-meld. However, as Jim and I had already melded prior to the Ambassador's attempt, Jim's mind was adept at finding things which perhaps the Ambassador did not expect to have to guard. These memories have been leaking into the captain's subconscious, triggered by certain events." He sounds so sanguine. McCoy is going to kill him. Orother him. A Spock is going to die. "And you've known this for seven months?" McCoy demands. "I have only just realized the extent of the matter. Jim has known for quite a bit longer." Jim winces, and clearly speculates on whether or not he can pretend to be asleep. Spock glares at him as McCoy narrows his eyes, and Jim just decides to look pathetic. Bastard. "Great," Bones exclaims dryly. "And now what, we have to deal with Jim having psychotic breaks thanks to your alternate- " "Hey!" Jim protests. "It wasn't a psychotic break- "

He determinedly slogs through an interview with Sarek, which gets disgustingly gritty and he wants to bleach his brain, but at least Sarek is more professional and not deliberately goading than his spawn. This is life on the Enterprise. Then there's Pon Farr, and Bones wants to die. He and M'Benga determine that it's a latent biological drive: the impetus to reproduce kicked into overdrive by the slaughter of so many of the species. Pon Farr happened younger, and built up more slowly, which was how Spock managed to survive a goddamn month of putting them through fucking hell before finally getting with the program. They realize, with a sinking feeling, that they're going to have to deal with this a lot, given the 50-or-so Vulcans on board the Enterprise (so many more than originally they'd thought they'd have, but what? Jim was going to turn people down now? Bull). "Fuck my life," McCoy groans. "I'll drink to that," M'Benga agrees. "Why the fuck did I let you convince me this was a good idea?"

17. It's unexpected that he hates that he's going to be missing Jo's birthdays. "You shut up," Bones snaps, pointing at him, because he just doesn't want Not that he's been there physically since her fifth, but he managed to videoto hear it from Jim right now. "Look, Spock- " con her on her sixth, seventh and eighth. But now he's in deep space, and "On the contrary, Doctor. The captain and I have now bonded; with my help, they get a yearly R&R, but his first year he uses it to go with Chapel to bury he will be able to differentiate between the Ambassador's memories and his her father, and his second year he uses it to go to New Vulcan, where they just happen to be having a medical seminar. own experiences. For the duration of time which you perceived us to be unconscious- " They still send each other messages, and he sends her things from planets they visit and tokens from the people they meet, but it's not the same as"Unconscious- your brain scans were off the fucking charts!" he explodes"unconscious" his ass! Perceived them to He knows that what he's doing is important. That they'd all have died a million times over if it wasn't for him, and he loves his job (as much as he "That is to be expected during a bonding- " complains). He just feels like maybe he abandoned his kid, even though "Bonded," McCoy repeats, pinching the bridge of his nose helplessly Jocelyn's a great mom and Jo does well in school and her videos are because he really is going to kill someone. He can't do this for another four always full of laughing stories of her very ordinary life. She talks about the years. He can't. He's going to have a heart attack. A stroke. "Oh, that's just boys she's crushing on (must be that because Daddy's so far away he's not great. So when some Starfleet hoity-toity asks me if I think either one of you a threat to potential boyfriends). is emotionally compromised- well, it'll be about you, because Jim He can't help but get shit-faced after he talks to her, because that wasn't is always compromised- " what he wanted. "Hey!" And sometimes it's Jim who cleans him up, but sometimes it's Christine. "I'm just supposed to gloss over the fact that you two are fucking married, And sometimes he decides not to pick up the absinthe, or the Romulan Alenow? Goddamnit, Jim!" sometimes he knocks on her door and she lets him in, and sits with him as "In this matter, Doctor, yes. We would appreciate your silence and your he swears angrily. assistance." It's just that there's this weird disconnect: most of them don't have familiesJim looks at him. "Bones." don't have kids- waiting for them. They have parents, siblings, but it's one of the factors that goes into evaluating whether or not crew members are McCoy stares at the both of them, and then sits on the bed across from eligible for the five-year mission into uncharted space. He's the only one he them, defeated. "You know, before I knew the two of you, my life was so knows of who has a kid, and even though he's been gone now for the much simpler. I'm ordering daily brain scans to make sure nothing majority of her life, he still- it's weird to remember that that part of his life extraordinary's going on- Spock, your parents bonded, right?" exists when he's in the throes of an alien pandemic or a genocide. It's weird "Yes." to think that Greensborough exists at all, because it's such a quiet little "I want you to contact your goddamn father and find out what the fuck we're place in the middle of nowhere. Less than a speck. in for. Jesus." McCoy points an accusing finger at Jim as he glares at 18. Spock. "Him I expect this shit from- you're supposed to be the good On the last year of their five-year journey (which is going to be renewed, influence!" because Starfleet needs them kind of desperately, it turns out), he takes "You would have preferred him catatonic or dead?" Spock inquires, like that's even the point that pretentious green-blooded sonovabitch"Okay, enough of that, we're due for something, not here," Jim interrupts. "Get out of my infirmary," Bones agrees. "Chapel! Where the hell're those goddamn drinks?" Christine back to Greensborough, where his dad still has the only doctor's office in the area and Jocelyn's mom still runs the corner store. It's like nothing's changed, even though everything has. Jocelyn smiles at him and he doesn't even hate her new boyfriend too much, just wants to punch him a little. Christine has a moment where she looks at his mama like she's insane when she asks Christine to help her

with a pie, which sends Mama onto a tear about these "high-falutin'" women he always picks up, and at least maybe this one he'll make an effort with. "I think," Christine says, as they leave, "that you should go by yourself, next time." "Now that's support," he snorts, wrapping his hand around hers, looking up into the sky. It's still disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence, but it's also home, in a strange way. It's a place where there are things to keep him occupied, it's the place where they're all a little lost. And maybe space is the only place they can be found. "Where to?" he asks Jim as the settle in the bar in San Francisco where they first met. Christine heads off with some of the other nurses to dance and celebrate: it's review time, but as much as they're a crisis-in-progress, they're also fucking amazing, and they all want so desperately to go back out into the black it's ridiculous. "Second star to the right." "Jim." He rolls his eyes.

3. The thing is, they're fucking family. No, really. He and Pavel figured it out on Gamma shift. Spock and the captain are obviously the parents. Uhura is like, the longsuffering aunt, Scotty is the crazy uncle. And McCoy is their crotchety old grandfather. And because they're all family, they're all hypersensitive to any shifts in the relationships of the "adults." Okay, mostly, they just all watch the captain and Spock. And they're very, very sure that they're all going to die every time they disagree. 4. Okay, the other thing is? They're all really fucking young. Their captain is 25, their first officer is 26. McCoy is 31- and he's one of the oldest people on board. Pavel is fucking 17.

They could have asked for transfers to more experienced ships. "What? I saw that battered hard copy of Peter Pan you have. C'mon, Bones. Instead (and he knows this because before Spock agreed to come aboard, Do I get to be Peter?" Kirk was really bad at not just exploding about random things in the middle Bones looks at him, then turns to the bartender. "Whatever you've got that of non-related meetings) they had requests for transfers on. Vulcans, a lot of don't taste like piss," he says flatly. Vulcans wanted to be on the ship that destroyed the ship that killed their home planet. Almost a quarter of their crew is Vulcan. Jim tilts his head back and laughs. Family Matters waldorph Summary: No seriously- they're the most dysfunctional family ever. Work Text: 1. When he was a kid, all he ever wanted was to fly. To go up in a spaceship and never touch back down. It's not that he had a bad childhood; he didn't. But he grew up in San Francisco watching the shuttles leave and touring Starfleet on vacationsand all he ever wanted was to wear the red of a cadet. He was good at physics, but he loved reading war theory- mostly battle tactics. He went for his doctorate in physics in the end, and, at his mother's pressing, got certified as a pilot. It was just chance that he subbed in for McKenna and wound up as helmsman. He could just as easily have been assigned as a science officer to another ship. He's grateful, though- he wouldn't change anything. He likes the bridge. He likes the crew. It's like having a front row seat to an old TV show: he gets to watch the insanity unfold right before his eyes. 2. The thing about being on the Enterprise is- you're either in it or you're not. The bridge crew- him, Uhura, Pavel, Spock and the Captain? They're the bridge crew. They're the best at what they do, and they all of them learned a long time ago that apologizing for it was pointless. It's not like they told him it would be. They told him that the captain wouldn't socialize with the crew, that the first officer would be the go-to. That the chain of command would be followed at all times. Bull. Shit. Kirk socializes with them all the time- probably because they all knew each other before Kirk even got dragged to the Academy. There's too much history there for them not to get along. And that's why it's not just a job, it's- it's their way of life. So the thing is, they're all young, straight out of the academy. And sometimes he thinks that they're all waiting for an adult to walk through the room and tell them to behave. But no one does, and for the first time he gets to be a part of a group of people who are all just as smart as he is, if not smarter. It's kind of amazing. 5. They get all these accolades. The Starfleet hierarchy love them- because Kirk is it's not that he's suicidal. It's not. It's just that he's fearless. Indestructible. High-functioning under pressure, willing to sacrifice himself for a greater good. Spock does a lot of quiet, logical conferencing with the higher-ups about the degree to which their missions always end up with Kirk in sickbay. McCoy does a lot of shouting. Hikaru puts it in his acting-captain supplementals on the oh-too-frequent occasions he is acting captain because Spock has gone down to rescue the captain, Scotty is too busy fixing the ship, and Uhura has to keep on hailing whomever it is they're fighting at the moment. Pike seems to get it, but there's only so much they can do, especially with the Romulans so antsy and the Klingons ready to attack the Romulans andit's a mess, and Jim Kirk has become this symbol for he doesn't even know. He's like their figurehead. Golden boy. Something. It's bullshit. 6. "They hate blue-eyed people," he repeats slowly. "And they duel." Spock nods. "And they have the captain, who has called you to be his second." Hikaru wishes, fervidly, that this was unusual. But it's not. And when he gets down there they have the captain and Chapel, who is cradled in the captain's arms carefully even though he's bleeding through his uniform. "Sulu," Kirk says mildly. "Tell me you remember how to do this." "I think so, sir."

Kirk grins at him, and he grins back because what else is he going to do? He lunges and parries, takes down opponent after opponent, but it doesn't seem to end. He wipes sweat off his forehead. "One last competitor have ye have needs to defeat," the chieftess says in a disgruntling deep voice. He's tired and sore. And this guy is all wiry muscle and faster than he is, and fuck. They're all going to die. And then the captain lunges and grabs the guy around the middle, and the guy wrenches and drives his rapier through the captain's side, but it's enough time for Hikaru to turn around and hit the jamming device with the pommel of his own rapier. "Get us out now! Have Doctor McCoy standing by to treat the captain!" he shouts into his comm, but by the time he finishes the sentence they're already in the transporter room. He marks another line on the chart he's keeping: he's mapping the galaxy with planets that take an inherent, unjustified dislike to the captain. There are far too many: they don't like how straight his teeth are, they don't like the color of his eyes, they don't like that he smiles, he's too good-looking, he's too- there's always something and it makes him crazy. Pavel knocks and sticks his head in. "Ready for dinner?" he asks. "Yeah, I'm coming." If it was any other group- if he was hearing these stories, he'd be impressed. It'd be a joke, kind of- the amazing surviving Kirk. Except Hikaru knows just as well as the rest of them that if they didn't have Doctor McCoy to beat back death; Spock to be the voice of reason; Uhura to smooth over as many misunderstandings as she does- he'd be dead. And they'd be dead with him. It's the reason he has to make jokes of it- has to lay bets, pretend like every time it's nothing more than a game. Because if he, for just a second, lets himself think of this as reality? Lets himself actually consider the implications of what it all means- of how close they come to disaster every time he'd go insane. "So. I am giving you excellent odds that the next planet? There will be a weird marriage ceremony and Spock and the captain will get married for the eighth time," he tells Pavel, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. "I believe I will agree with you," Pavel decides. "We are due for one." "See?" Hikaru nods. He has blood under his fingernails. "Exactly. Things have been too quiet." Eye of a Hurricane waldorph Summary: She's a press secretary, a PR manager; she's the one who keeps them onmessage. She's the one who takes the make-shift bombs from Kirk's fingers. She's the only sane person on the whole ship. Work Text: 01. She knows that Kirk needs help in certain places, so she color-codes notes, she stands next to him and smiles; she maneuvers the Federation's press; she gets him out when he's had enough. She's a press secretary, a PR manager; she's the one who keeps them onmessage. She's the one who takes the make-shift bombs from Kirk's fingers; she's the one who finds him when he's having domestic issues. At some point, he became the younger brother she never had. She loves him; she's proud of him (fiercely, embarrassingly); she wants him happy.

When he and Spock have their months of fall-out, she tries to be there for him, mad at Spock when no one else will be- when everyone else is too afraid (except McCoy, who is pissed to high hell but more worried about Kirk than Spock). She liked Spock even as a student, but she remembers the first time she saw him look at Jim. They'd been in a classroom, Kirk coming in after-hours, and Spock had looked at him in a way that was so unlike Spock; unprofessional and soft around the edges with a small tightening around his mouth that she thinks might have the potential to be a pleasantly surprised (thrilled) smile. And she hadn't ever wanted to come in the middle of that; watching it unfold and the way that they were together; equal and separate but united. It's a remarkable relationship. It's a relationship that keeps them all togetherSpock and Kirk sit as the sun of their little universe; they all rotate and revolve around them. So when it faltered all she wanted to do was hit Spock upside the head and demand to know what the fuck he thought he was doing. 02. The thing about the first time Nyota met Jim Kirk is, she wouldn't actually have remembered him if it hadn't been for the fact that he'd known what xenolinguistics was. There have been a lot of very drunk, very hot men in her past- and after she'd known Gaila for a week that number had shot up exponentially. But Kirk had been smart, and so when Gaila drags her to a bar in the city and she sees him behind the counter, she has to laugh, because this? Is just her luck. "So. Uhura. Freedom, right?" he asks, handing her a shot of Jack, and it's kind of surprising that he knows her, because he was so trashed that night. "Swahili?" "Yeah," she agrees, and then blinks at him. He grins, pleased to have surprised her, and she rolls her eyes. He's such a little shit. "What's your first name mean?" "Nope." "Aw, c'mon!" he grins. He's not drunk, but he's still all swagger, and she realizes that he would, sober, have told Hemmerstein to get more guys to make it an even fight. He's such an ass. He dates- fucks- Gaila a few times, but it breaks off relatively amicably (there is no burning in effigy, which is always a plus). And the thing is, she likes his bar. The atmosphere is nice; it feels like a slice of not her home, but a home in a city whose population is always shifting, and if she goes between one and five, it's just the regulars and it's quiet. Sometimes she looks up and sees him reading advanced physics theories or philosophies or histories and frowns to herself, because she's good at reading people, but she's bad at figuring him out. He doesn't quite fit. And then there's the fact that he calculates tabs in his head, and when he's bored- really bored, the kind of bored that makes her slip back into Swahili because her brain has turned off- he does millennium problems on napkins. Some nights she even lets him give her free shots, and over the course of a year she realizes that she thinks the fact that he told Hemmerstein to get more guys? Is hilarious, in a horrifying kind of way. 03. Being Chief Communications Officer was always her dream. Serving on the Enterprise wasn't just a dream, it was what she wanted with every fiber of her being. She wanted to go out into space, to meet strange cultures and never have to be stuck, or stop learning. She never considered the fact that she'd also be the only sane person on the ship.

Not true, to be fair. Spock is sane as well. Relatively- when his biology isn't going mental. But when they're in the deep of space, with all of them still raw over the loss of Vulcan, over the loss of so many of their friends, over family- it aches. They all ache, in their own ways. And they're not unfit. Each one of them is extremely qualified, and she can't deny that Kirk is- excellent at letting them all be geniuses, not staring over their shoulders even when she can see he wants to. In the beginning he's busy learning his own job, but he gets bored easily. She knows that months into the run he's itching to look at the rest of their jobs, but he doesn't, because most of them haven't even served on a training run, and now here they are, aboard the fleet's flagship, and the last thing they need is their captain breathing down their necks, proving he can do their job and his. And some days she goes into her room, strips out of her uniform and unzips her boots and inhales to begin to tell Gaila about the latest strange thing she saw, only to remember that she's on the Enterprise and that Gaila is dead. And then she sits, quiet, on the foot of her bed, waiting for the wave of sadness to pass so she can pull on the dress her grandmother gave her before she left, put on her aunts' jewelry and take her hair down, and sit, surrounded by pieces of home, looking through pictures of it, of school, to remind herself of why they're out here. Why the Federation's core mission is so important. Why they have to keep every planet, and every life, as safe from harm as they can. 04. They all cope differently. Sulu bets on everything, and Chekov helps him, but Chekov's also so eager; he wants everyone to smile just once. Scott gets lost in the Enterprise's code and in her mechanics for weeks on end. McCoy is brusque and abrasive but also the most human person aboard the ship- he's the first one to snap that they're making judgment calls that they shouldn't; that they're being xenophobic; that they're not anyone's god. The arguments between he and Spock are epic, and Kirk sits there in the chair, index finger pressed against his lower lip, listening to them both. He's not in the least consistent with who he sides with, but he is consistent in what he decides. Kirk is married to this ship in the way kings of old were married to their countries. In the way that they would bleed and die gladly for their parcels of land; for the people who worked them, people whom they would never know, so Kirk will bleed and die gladly for the Enterprise and her crew, even if he doesn't know all of their names (but he does, and it floors her every time he calls a cook or an ensign by name). They all know it- and she knows it's why so many of them from the chain of command go down with him. Spock is there almost every time, and she goes almost every time, and McCoy goes unless expressly forbidden. They leave the ship with Scott because he can save anyone; there's not a technological issue he can't solve, and if he can't, if he has Chekov they're fine. They love him because he'll die for each and every one of them, and none of them are ready to let him. Sometimes it feels out of their control. When she looks at Sulu's map of the galaxy and sees how many of them irrationally hate their captain it makes her furious in a helpless, hot way. When they're dragging him back, bleeding out yet again because they weren't fast enough in stopping him from taking a phaser blast or a bullet or an arrow or a spear or a rock meant for one of them or for some random native, they all have murder in their eyes. She doesn't know what they'll ever do if he's lost to them. If some stupid planet manages to kill him, Spock is the default next. And yet Spock is emotionally compromised by Jim and there's a possibility he would defer

command- and yet who would he leave the ship to? She knows herself well enough to know that she would tell Scott within an instant to blow the planet to hell, and she's pretty sure they'd have to get to another Vulcan- maybe T'Pon- before they found a level-headed person to steer them clear of the planet without destroying it. She would never forgive herself after, if she gave that order, but she knows to her core that all of them would exact bloody vengeance and take the penalty, whatever it might be. Spock is their only hope for salvation in the face of Jim's (sometimes inevitable-seeming) death, but sometimes when she sees him, straight-backed and tight shouldered, stalking towards the infirmary, she thinks that it's less hope than even Pandora got, and despairs. 05. She misses having a girlfriend. She never really had one before, so caught up in studying to get to Starfleet Academy, that when she finally got to the Academy and met Gaila, she'd been blindsided. Gaila would come up to her while they were all going to their next classes, walking across the green, and say something like, "So, you know how I was going to screw Henderson?" "Gaila," Nyota would groan, knowing it was no use. "Oh my god, it's like a tube of lipgloss. And that's allowing for inflation," Gaila would confide gleefully, slipping her arm through Nyota's. "Like, I didn't know when to start faking it, you know? He was kind of rocking, but it was like, "Is it in yet or what?", you know?" "Gaila," Nyota would laugh, mortified as Gaila tossed her red curls. "From now on, I'm grabbing the crotch. It's like a handshake. I mean, if he's getting off, I want to get off, and not by my fingers, because if it's me doing it then why the fuck do I need him, you know?" Nyota had nightmares about Gaila being introduced to the newest cadets or someone's father and grabbing the crotch of the man in question and evaluating it. "That is the one thing about Orion men. We breed 'em well-hung." "So much hate," Nyota would insist, but Gaila never believed her. "You adore me. I'm the best roommate ever. Let's get drunk." Nyota misses that. Then she meets Christine Chapel, who watches McCoy rage at everyone for five minutes solid without taking a discernible breath, looks at Nyota, and says, "He's a decent fuck, but he's moody." And it's such a shock, because Chapel has always been this quiet girl with platinum blond hair and clear blue eyes and a sweet smile- Nyota never really got to meet her, but"Drink?" Chapel inquires. "Please." It's not the same- Chapel's given to bouts of crudity, sure, but she says it with such a sweetness that Nyota never really takes her seriously. It's just nice, though, having someone who she can go to and say, "I need chocolate. I don't care where it comes from." Or talk about the guys on the last planet they went to who hit on her without someone overreactingunderstanding that there are times when a complaint is simply that- a complaint; an opportunity to commiserate. And some days Christine will come to her quarters and they talk about their families, about Earth- about the normal things. And Nyota's grateful.

06. "So why is it always 'Uhura'?" Kirk asks her. His eyes are glazed as McCoy plays with hypo dosage. "I carry the name of my family," she says after considering it. "My family is who I am." He looks at her, considering it. She knows that his whole family throws the name "Kirk" around, when they have to, but they're known as individuals. That's their culture, not hers. Her grandmother raised her; her father had abandoned them and her mother had died of a brain hemorrhage when she was three. Uhura is a maternally passed-on name; in her grandmother's home, surrounded by aunts and female cousins, Nyota often heard, "We are all Uhura here." It's interchangeable with any of their given names, and it was always her youngest cousin's favorite trick to shout "Uhura!" and watch everyone in the room turn to respond. Uhura is the name they are all called until their personalities show enough for them to be given first names- Nyota is secondary, always, to Uhura. Uhura is the family's woman; she's like a patron goddess of old; she's the woman they all combine to create. Uhura is toasted, celebrated; she is a part of who Nyota is. She knows that her family isn't completely Terran Human- that they have roots in matriarchal planets far away, and that it influenced their culture, but her allegiance has never truly been to her planet, but to her people. Freedom. Uhura. It is who she is. She is the Uhura who reaches for the stars. "My brother," Kirk says, "doesn't have a single name that's his." Then he thinks about it. "You know what? Neither do- OW!- I! Bones, doesn't that seem wrong to you? What'd I ever do to have to be someone else? I don't think my parents were very creative." "Jim, your parents had about 60 seconds to name you before your father died," McCoy points out, reading the scanner's feedback. "I don't think they had time to be creative. And don't you dare ask me why they didn't prepare ahead of time- obviously it's a genetic trait." "I don't procrastinate," Kirk protests (which is impressive, given that he's pretty heavily sedated right now), slouching back and looking at her earnestly. She bites her lips against her smile. "Whatever. My mother's getting a very strongly worded letter." "Jim, you don't write letters. You barely tolerate scrawling that piss-poor excuse for a signature," McCoy points out bluntly, and then administers a sedative, and they share a mutual shake of the head at how absurd Jim can be. 07. She misses running. You can only go so far on a treadmill before you feel that you're not accomplishing anything at all, and she loved to run. When they're on a safe, friendly planet, she sometimes grabs Sulu and they go for companionable, long runs, the kind that burn out everything but the fire in your lungs and legs, running until you shake and it feels so good.

She thinks it does, and they bully it out of him, and the three of them get roaringly drunk together. 08. She's protective of Jim, but Jim is pretty self-contained. She thinks he always has been, especially when they get glimpses into his past because of something he says or on the rare occasions they see his family. He has her for the big problems, and he has playmates in the bridge crew and Scotty, and he has a brother in McCoy, but his whole world is down to Spock. Spock is the one who doesn't have anyone, though. He has Jim, and he has the other Vulcans, but the Vulcans on board they treat Spock as a leader. He and McCoy have their moments, and Chekov adores him wholly, and they all like Spock but sometimes the problem isn't Spock, sometimes its Jim, and she doesn't know how it happens, but she's a go-between. She can take Spock's stiffly worded phrases and go beat Jim over the head with them until he fixes whatever he's screwed up, and Spock smiles at her slightly and they're friends. And sometimes they can just sit, or he'll play an instrument as she sings and it'snice. She thinks that in a galaxy- a universe- where there's no Jim Kirk, she and Spock could have made a go of it, at least for a while. 09. Their third year out, they all go to New Vulcan for shore leave. Spock and Jim head to their home, and most of the bridge crew and Scott follow them. They all have rooms, and it's ridiculously domestic. "I hate waffles," Jim announces. "You don't cook," Hikaru points out. "Since I am cooking, I call the shots." "But I'm captain." "We're on shore leave." "But- Uhura! He's making waffles!" She smiles at Hikaru and sits on the floor, stretching and enjoying the heat, listening to the ocean crash gently at the shore. It reminds her of home, in a way. "Captain. You have two hands." "This is mutiny," Jim mutters. "Mutiny I tell you." He goes to the replicator and it obliges him with his usual power bar- she doesn't know why he always complains, he hates breakfast, and always has a power bar, chased by orange juice. Spock comes down with the look of a man who has spent a profitable amount of time meditating, plucks the power bar from Jim's hand, and the proceeds to make a Vulcan dish. She watches as Jim peers over his shoulder with reluctant curiosity, and eats what he's given. Between the cheese and vegetable wrap that Spock creates and the waffles Hikaru makes they're all content, and Scotty unrolls the wrap and spreads the insides over the waffles and declares it "fucking brilliant."

She laughs until her sides ache as Jim convinces McCoy to go swimming, and Christine leans against her, weeping through her own laughter. Spock The thing about her relationships is, she likes the slow build. She likes being sits a few feet away from them, meditating and monitoring, while Scotty plays with a comm and Hikaru and Pavel start betting on when McCoy will friends and warming into something more. She doesn't like going in blind. drown the captain. So when Hikaru leans over and kisses her, even though she's disgusting "I need a new dress for this fancy reception," Christine decides. "Leonard! and panting after the first long run they've had for months, she returns it. Come buy me a dress." Because she likes him, and he's competent and funny and fatalistic, and she's never met anyone like him. He gives her a look. "No." But being with him is like being on the treadmill, and he sighs when she "Fine. But you don't get to take it off me," she snorts, and he considers this. breaks it off as gently as she can; he says that it was bound to happen, and "I'll tell Jo on you," he says finally, and Christine stares at him and the sighs. does she think it merited some of Scotty's special brew.

"Fair enough." She looks at Nyota with a wry grin, "Never have stepchildren. Even when they're billions of lightyears away they always take his side and they're too damn cute not to give into, even if they are 13." They all get into their formal uniforms reluctantly, Scotty complaining about his sunburn and Jim complaining about the uniform in general ("It's green. It's like I don't even know. How is this ever attractive?" he demands. "Look forward to taking it off, then," Hikaru suggests, and Jim grins brightly, as this thought had clearly not occurred to him before.) The formal reception is Federation-based, and everyone who's anyone is there. It's much more of a party than she'd expected, but she supposes that the celebratory mood is coming from the Human sector of the Federation. The Vulcans seem to be tolerating it, however. McCoy's favorite young surgeon, T'Pon, actually smiles as she crosses the room to a young Vulcan man. "Her bondmate," Sarek explains, following her gaze. "Many have elected to take new bondmates, but she was one of the fortunate. He is hers since they were young." "She's very lucky," Nyota agrees. "My congratulations on your accomplishments, Ambassador. Your people must be very proud of what they have created and preserved."

"Nothin' it's just- nothing. C'mon, dance with me." "Oh, no. You are very drunk and you can't dance, Scotty," she says, but it's no use, he's grabbing her and dragging her out to dance- which normally she would kill him for, but she's all dressed up and he's laughing and redcheeked. He looks a little ridiculous in his formal uniform but it doesn't matter because his joy is infectious, and soon she's laughing along with him and trying to follow him, but mostly just along for the ride, hoping he doesn't dump her on her backside. They stay up drinking, and instead of being Jim's go-between she's Scotty's, hiding him from everyone he's ever made angry- which seems to beeveryone, and laughing helplessly the longer the night goes on, because it's ridiculous. And she's a little drunk. They all go back to Jim and Spock's, and then they get really, really drunk, and Spock grabs Jim and hauls him away to their bedroom and then they all have to drink a little to screw up the courage to go upstairs, because Spock and Jim aren't exactly quiet. Which is why the next morning she wakes up to a hairy leg brushing her thigh, and when she blinks blearily she can see Scotty sitting upright in the bed, clearly trying to figure out whether he should bolt or stay. She doesn't think, really, because it's easy to reach up and shove his shoulder back down so he's lying beside her, grab his arm and wrap it around her and go to sleep again.

He looks about thoughtfully, almost critically, as though cataloguing every failure of this place to be Vulcan. Then, surprisingly, he nods once. "Yes. My people offer thanks, Lieutenant. We have much to be proud of as a people." To ignore the awkwardness until it disappears as she searches for her panties- ripped, it turns out, and she wishes she could remember that in His eyes go tense, almost hunted and she follows his gaze to where Spock more detail- and slides into one of her grandmother's dresses, going out to and Jim are coming through, Jim giving her a dark look. the ocean and kissing him until he realizes that this is for as long as it lasts. "Isn't it part of your job description to keep the harridans away?" 10. "No," she replies with a grin. He's a little soft in the middle, and he's the playmate to a ship. The "You're fired," he says flatly, and Spock lifts an eyebrow. Enterprise loves Jim, but it plays with Scotty, and he loves nothing more than to invent new games. "Fine. For the next five minutes," Jim amends. "You're fired starting now." He's balding, and he's not he's not where she thought she'd ever end up, "Yes, sir," she agrees dryly. Scotty hands her a drink. or even stop by the wayside for a while, but he makes her laugh and will "Cannae be sober for this," he decides, clinking his glass with hers and spontaneously start to dance, and he pulls miracles out of nowhere. drinking deeply. "Bureaucrats everywhere. Probably've pissed off 'em all." He doesn't fuss when she's hit on; he's not protective the way that Spock is "Is Admiral Archer here?" she asks, and he shoots her a wounded look of Jim, or like McCoy is of Christine. She gets a bit annoyed when he gets before looking around quickly. hit on, but he laughs at her and lets her show him where he belongs. "I do feel bad about that dog," he maintains, but she thinks he's not sorry at 11. all; or at least not as sorry as he is that his theory didn't work out the way he Scotty doesn't have family, except for a sister whom he never speaks to wanted it to. She thinks she can hear Jim "scoping out" potential "hot dates" which she should have figured, because so many of them either don't have for Sarek- this is confirmed when she glances over at Sarek, who looks like families or aren't close to them. he's simultaneously developing a twitch and an ulcer as Spock serenely She is, though- has one and is close to it- so she takes him home to meet gazes about as though he has no idea what's going on. Jim was right: her grandmother and aunts because they've been together two years now, Spock thinks it's funny when Jim baits his father. and their first stint on the Enterprise (because it is just the first of many five "You really don't," she informs Scotty, who grins at her a little roguishly. year tours; none of them are leaving that ship) is coming to a close and there's so much paperwork to be done and a year's enforced sabbatical. "But I should." There's a strange moment where Jim and Spock detach to cross the room to meet a man who is walking towards them. All of their faces are heavy with something- sorrow and gravitas so out of place in the middle of what is a Federation-wide celebration of the building of New Vulcan. The older Vulcan abortively leans in towards Jim- not a lot, no more than a couple of inches, but she is very good at reading people, and she can see the way Spock shifts to an almost proprietary stance, the way Jim doesn't notice either Vulcan's actions and yet his shoulders bend, slightly, with guilt. The three of them barely speak, and they all seem to be stuck inside a moment of sheer quiet sorrow. "Oh," Scotty says softly, and he looks a little sad too. "What?" she asks. So she takes him to Kenya to relax for a month or so. "I burn!" he protests. "I have lotion," she replies. "I am very, very bad with people." She ignores him, and he is actually really terrible with people who aren't used to him, but Aunt Ua laughs and Aunt Mvua shows him her brewery, and when Nyota finds him again he's elbow deep in it, babbling about how he can make it have twice the output, be more easily shifted to give darker and lighter brews, and she leans against the cool stone wall of the brewery and then turns to Bibi, who laughs and hugs her and says that a useful man is hard to find.

Over the course of the next three months he fixes the piping in everyone's houses, he fixes everyone's replicators, and she has to explain to the authorities that no, he's not building weapons on the roof of Bibi's house, he's just optimizing the solar power. Which is half-true. "I like it here," he decides. "Got to learn football, though." "Scotty, no," she says. The next morning she's reading the news and her messages from Jim and Spock and Christine when a football comes flying through the door. It's green and black, and Mkimbiaji comes in with a bright smile on her face and asks for "Spockball back please." "Scotty!" Nyota shouts, and he just grins at her before turning back to the game. She takes a picture and sends it to Jim, and then sends an apology to Spock, but really. Spockball. And she knows she's found the life she loves because even here, in the place she calls home, everything she says and every thought she has manages to come back to the Enterprise. 12. "Going to marry him?" Jim asks as she guides him through a press conference. "Shut up and smile," she says through her own. He does- he has an amazing smile. The whole galaxy forgives the Enterprise everything when Jim Kirk smiles and says the words she tells him to say. "Well, are you?" he asks after it's over and they're in a back room, which is close to the back door. She throws a shirt at him as he strips out of his uniform shirt- he hates it, and the only way she is going to save it from fiery death is to always have one of his old shirts ready at the end of a press conference. She rolls her eyes- he's such a piece of work. He shoots her an expectant look as he ruffles his hair, sticking his hands in his pockets and grinning. "I don't know. Maybe, after" "After what?" She looks at him, and then smiles slightly. "It means a lot to you, being married." "Yeah. Plus, Scotty keeps talking about how cute your babies will be, so, you know." She stops dead, and he keeps walking, and then she hears him laughing, but that doesn't mean he's lying. "Wait, what?" she demands, running after him. "Jim! Jim- what?!" The Wanting and the Having waldorph Summary: T'Pring is being bonded to Spock because of its political and, indeed, monetary advantage. Work Text: 01. He is, she is told, half-Vulcan, and half-Human. His mother is a Human woman, whom T'Pring believes she can remember from clan gatherings (though it is possible it is a false memory, and that she is only transposing pictures of the woman into the sea of faces at those events). Looking down at the images now she thinks Amanda Grayson looks a kind woman, and not deserving of the mistrust and scorn T'Pring knows she receives (it ebbs like ink through her name whenever anyone speaks of her).

Ambassador Sarek is one of the most respected and prominent Vulcans in their clan, and indeed on Vulcan. As the Ambassador to Earth, he is consulted in all manner of things, and his opinions weigh heavy. He is also a member of the Vulcan Science Academy's Board of Admissions. Regardless of these facts, T'Pring can sense from her parents and from those around that there is something incorrect with his marriage to Amanda Grayson; that while T'Pring is being bonded to Spock because of its political and, indeed, monetary advantage, Spock himself is somehow undesirable. In their minds, his name is the brown of Earth's dirt. She cannot acquire fully-formed answers. Questions result in uncharacteristic hedging and minds slamming shut around her, and she realizes, as she is brought to the bonding ceremony, that she will have to discover what is so terrible about Spock herself. Very well. She lifts her chin under the enormous hairstyle and straightens her shoulders under the multiple layers of fabric that make up her elaborate gown. He looks, at the ceremony, no different than any other Vulcan boy she has met. The dark, folding robes render him small, but her own hair is piled atop her head like a small mountain, and she can sense in him, even before the bond takes hold, the quiet resignation of one who has been dressed by one's parents. It makes her like him before the ceremony is even complete. They are left together in a solarium, likely closely monitered by their parents outside, to acclimate to the bond; to the presence of another mind closely linked with their own. His mind feels like a tidal wave, and she does not think it is his lack of control; it is simply that his melding abilities and the strength of his mind therein are far greater than her own. He takes, and she gives, gleaning little of him as they sit side by side, backs to the window. She does not know how long they sit like that, but at some point the onslaught slows to a cool ebb, like waves lapping against a shore. "I think your father was perfectly correct in marrying your mother," she tells him as the sun sets and everything turns brilliant red. She is surprised to find that she is enjoying it, and then realizes that she is notthat Spock is the one of them who loves this time of day, and by proxy so does she, now. He blinks at her, and he seems inclined to have her explain it, rather than to search her mind for the provocation. Which is just as well, as she is unsure of the provocation herself. "Humans are Vulcan allies. Obviously we should have close relations: Ambassador Sarek was perfectly correct in marrying and fathering a child with a Human. Very logical," she adds, nodding to herself. Then she reaches up and pulls her hair out of its twisting growth atop her head, because it hurts, and she feels as though she is wearing abstract art on her head. He looks at her, and then lifts an eyebrow, reaching up and helping her so that it does not tangle. "Show me how to do that," she demands, reaching out and tracing the line of his eyebrow. Fascinating. He tries. He pushes her eyebrow up with his finger, has her raise both and then pushes the other down, but it never works. She frowns and contorts her face in concentration, and soon he is collapsed in laughter, and she thinks to be annoyed, but then his mind flashes to her how she looks, and they both dissolve into fresh laughter. She likes him, but she must teach him not to laugh so freely; happiness is not a dangerous emotion, but allowing one emotion to take over is to allow all to take over, and their people have come too far to be so unravelled. It is difficult to navigate the bond; foods she used to like hold no appeal to her, and people whom she had once been fond of she now holds strange resentment towards.

The bond colors everything, and she is unsure of whether Spock feels the affects as strongly. When he picks up a cracker with cheese she realizes it does not: she dislikes Guuran cheese. For a week she builds slow walls against it, tampered by her own reluctance. It feels like a secret between them, but her mother sits her down three days into slow pogress and says, "T'Pring. I know that the bond makes you desire further closeness, but do not confuse loss of self with being close. You are T'Pring, he is Spock, and the two are joined, but not the same." Her fingers press a kiss to T'Pring's and she draws back, standing tall and outlined in the high Vulcan sunlight. She is calm and logical and strong, and T'Pring would someday be so. "I believe we will work on your mental defenses," Mother adds. "You seem weaker than he." The words are shaded a sickly green and spiderwebbed angrily with black: her mother is disgusted that the half-Human, half-Vulcan Spock should be a better telepath than her full-Vulcan daughter.

*** When they are eleven he hands her a necklace and identifies it as her mother's, though she has not told him it is her mother's, and has not consciously thought of it as such. "How did you know it was my mother's?" she inquires, fastening it and placing a hand over the large, smooth stone. "I just knew," he replies, and his words are honey-warm and complacent in her mind's eye. This is something he does not question, and why would he? She is, she admits to herself, envious of his abilities. She takes it as an opportunity to better herself; to strengthen her mental walls until he truly cannot glean from her what she does not wish him to have. Sometimes, even when she thinks she has succeeded, she finds she has failed, but she takes it as a personal challenge.

Once she has realized how adept he is, it occurs to her to look to their peers, and after careful examination of those around him, she realizes that they have all had such a moment: Spock knows that which he should not T'Pring thinks to be resentful, but even though her mother wishes it were not even without physical contact he slides past walls which are not fully so, Spock is there in the back of her mind, and T'Pring knows him. formed. There is a lesson there; it is an opportunity for growth, but she realizes that theyall the other children of their own clan and others are Biology or no, Spock is her people. Her person. resentful of Spock. He is half-Human, and logic would dictate that he would 02. not be a skilled telepaththat he would not be able to function as a full"I shall flay them," she decides. They are nine, and she has just been blooded Vulcan would. informed of their fight; it would explain why she suddenly broke her stylus And yet he does not just meld with other Vulcans with an ease that is and saw red and black so strongly it overpowered her optic input for 2.5 enviable; she has seen him meld with animals, with other species of seconds. "Given adequate vacuuming the Vulcan body can be drained of humanoids; with machinery. There is evidence that he is capable of blood in 3.2 seconds." psychometry as wellshe would have to test it more thoroughly to know for He lifts an eyebrow at her, just because he can. She is onto him. "I do not sure, as it is possible that he truly is simply gleaning the thoughts of the need you to fight my battles for me." individual in relation to the object. "do not be absurd," she dismisses, sitting beside him and removing the He also excels academically. She simply watches with a faint smile lurking cheese from her plate and taking from him the bread. "You are in the back of her mind as he catapults beyond the skills and aptitudes of physiologically smaller than they you were fortunate to catch them offhis "peers" and even older students. guard with your rage." Even those instructors who resent him have no choice but to give him "I am stronger than they are," he maintains, splitting his lip again. flawless marks, and she takes pleasure in his success. "You took advantage of their cowardice and attachment to non-action by *** countering with a vehement course of violent action." She raises her Not all of their classmates resent him. T'Ren is a promiscuous twelve; eyebrows at him. "You are bleeding." fascinated by reproductive processes, especially interspecial reproductive "It is nothing." processes. She makes no secret of this, carrying the datafiles openly, and "It is not logical to suffer so, unless of course this is part of the punishment, as Spock is the only hybrid at the Academy it is no secret that her interests and the enduring of the physical wound is designed to act as a reminder not lay with him. to participate in the course of action which garnered it in the first place." She touches Spock far too often, and the green flush that curls at the nape of his neck informs T'Pring all she needs to know, even if the bond did not He looks at her, and the looks is familiar already. "T'Pring." allow her insight into a challenge from this intruder on what is hers. "Yes?" T'Pring will not have it, and so she sits next to T'Ren during a study break. "You talk too much." T'Ren looks up as though apprehensive. It is a thank you, and she allows her shoulder to press against him briefly in Good. an unspoken, "You are welcome." She takes her handkerchief and dabs T'Pring says nothing, simply sits across from T'Ren complacently, but allows green smears onto it, putting pressure on his lip. her mind to broadcast all manner of terrible thingssome of which T'Pring He does not rise to the bait, but after The Incident no one baits him. They has in her power to do, and others so wildly imaginative their purpose is to are frightened of him, if still resentful. add ambiance rather than be truly threatening in a realistic sense. When Spock comes in she touches his arm and presses a kiss to his first and He stops laughing, and she is glad of it, but misses the clear ringing sound of it. Which is illogical, as it is clearly in his best interests for the laughter to second fingers. He raises an eyebrow at her, and she raises both of hers be subdued to an amused shift of his eyebrow; a glint in his eyes which, she back. must admit, are very Human. T'Ren gets up, murmurs a polite excuse, and all but flees. They are so dissimilar. She has a complacency in the conviction that she "That was a little more than necessary, do not you think?" he inquires wryly. will never be turned away for what she is; he has never known that easy acceptance. She enjoys the company of many; he is solitary, and prefers his "Just enough," she retorts, and realizes she will have to smooth the bite from her voice. mother to any peer. She is content on Vulcan; she can feel in him a desire to fly and touch his fingertips to the stars yet undiscovered.

T'Ren never comes near him again, and the word goes around; Spock is T'Pring's. 03. When they are 14 hormones and pheromones begin to take over, and suddenly they all discover why, every so often, a woman challenges her bondmate, or her bondmate asks for all to be dissolved, or why, after the first seven years, the two elect to find someone better suited. T'Pring thinks it would be logical to get to know him intimately; to know how best to relieve him of his arousal in a quick manner for when Pon Farr descends; to enjoy the act herself, rather than to just satisfy him; to endure it passively and without pleasure. It is logical to be prepared, after all, and she will admit to biologically-driven curiosity. She does not find him unattractive. But Spock seems unwilling, and though a flush curls at the back of his neck when she, through their bond, attempts to convey this, he replies that his studies are more pressing upon him. There is always an excuse. She tries to recall, precisely, definitively, when he started slipping from her, retreating from her entirely at times. She cannot recall the date or the time or even the month or year, but at some point between eleven and thirteen he did, and now she cannot find him at all sometimes, and the space of her mind which moved and made room for him echoes with the absence of him. Other times she can sit next to him and let the calm of his mind wash over hers and soothe her, and she can offer him the same serenity. Sometimes it is as though nothing has changed, and they are united against the world and he is raising an eyebrow at her because he can, and she cannot. At those times, when they are bent over a physics problem, solving it together for the pleasure of doing so, it is as though nothing has changed; at other times it is as though everything has, and that there is no going back from here. T'Pok and T'Priela inform her that their bondmates and they have investigated stimulating arousal; T'Puo has, apparently, pursued more intimate physical relations with Sannek, who is not her bondmate. T'Ren has made the rounds, and is said to keep a chart which tracks stamina, force of orgasm, mutual satisfaction, and size of the organ. T'Pring has no idea whether to be appalled or amused, but it helps to strengthen her resolve to get what she wants. And as logical as the request may be, when she approaches him and says, "I wish to pursue an intimate relationship for the purposes of establishing a baseline understanding of your physiology," he lifts his eyebrow and says; "Fascinating." As though that is an appropriate response. "Explain." "I was not aware that you felt as such. Thank you for explaining. When would you like to arrange for this series of datagathering sessions to begin?" She looks at him, and there is a sterile blue to his words, as shriveling disinterest as effective as a drought which turns all that was once lush to barren desert, and she no longer is so interested. The reciprocal nature of enjoyment in a feedback loop was imperative, she had found through inquiry. Undoubtedly his reluctance and scientific approach to mating would make the event less pleasurable (T'Ren has arduously assured them all that enthusiasm makes up for a multitude of failings, and T'Puo, who is far more reliable, has corroborated that finding), and therefore why engage in it if not for Pon Farr and the purpose of reproduction? She realizes that intimate, sexual relations between she and Spock will be relegated to the realm of necessity, not pleasure. She declines to set a date, and they do not speak of it again. ***

She does not experiment with any of the others, however, though there are offers. There are minds which open in subtle invitations, an odd shock of fantasy when she brushes a hand reaching for a stylus or a datafile. Some of their peers are very imaginative, if not altogether based in reality (the Vulcan body, and indeed most likely no humanoid body, can bend in that way). They make heat pool at the base of her spine and in her abdomen She is not willing to give up on she and Spock, not when she is still very fond of him, and when their childhoods were built upon this; designed to create a foundation for their future together. She still takes pride in his academic excellence, and he gratifies her with a raised eyebrow when she wins recognition for her theories on morality and logic as relating to Surak's own teachings. The space in her mind, so frequently empty, warms with the red heat of sunset which she will always associate with him, and in those moments she supposes they will be fine. She reasons that perhaps he is shy; perhaps being a hybrid has rendered him malformed in some way; perhaps he wishes to wait to know himself before he will know her; sexual closeness often triggers the bond to blow wide open, and he has becomeno, he has always beenvery private. His thoughts are his own, and what he shares he shares deliberately and with great forethought. It is a very Human sentiment; to know oneself before knowing another. The entire purpose of having a bondmate at seven is to have someone with whom you are entirely invested in; to ensure that Pon Farr is successful and the blood burning is sated; that the coupling and marriage are stable, and thus the society is. To know oneself as defined by one's bondmate is the norm; she and Spock are becoming an exception, a strange, unexpected anomaly as their peers drift closer to their bonded, she and Spock drift further apartand she is helpless to stop it. And sometimes, when she steps back and looks at them in a purely analytical way, she does not want to stop it. 04. They are fifteen when the news of Tarsus IV ripples like a shockwave through the Federation. Colonization projects are abruptly put on hold, and T'Pring, with a certain morbid fascination, cannot stop watching the live stream holovids as survivors are catalogued, as Kodos' body is removed, as Winona Kirk grips the phaser that ended Kodos' life as though she wishes that she could end it a second time. The voice accompanying the 'vid informs her that Kirk's youngest son is a survivor. Spock finds her in the concave she has claimed, and he stands behind her, watching as a camera swings past, and then jerks back to, two young males. Both are humanoid, likely Terran; one brown-haired and one blond. The brown-haired one has his arms wrapped around the smaller blond in a protective gesture which fiercely ignores the entire external world, as though the boy in his arms is his world, metaphorically speaking. They are, improbably, sitting in the middle of the landing area for shuttlecraft, and completely oblivious to what is going on around them. Their facial similarities suggest that they are most likely brothers; the blond looks utterly vacant. "My mother is sending out an invitation to those children who have survived. She believes that the application of logic might offer them a serenity they may not find otherwise." "It is an admirable thought," Spock agrees, which is neither an endorsement nor dismissal. She turns to look at him, and after a moment he looks at her, the image of the boys reflected in eyes which should be easy to read but never are. "It was not morally permissable," she says, testing a boundary she thinks she has found. T'Pol is this ruthlessly logical; morality is secondary to the good of the many. Sometimes Spock reminds her of T'Pol.

"There is a logic to it, however." "There is" "The good of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one," he says seriously, and there is a faint grey in his voice with a strongly throbbing blue line: he means what he says. "That is appalling," she informs him. "That makes you no better than those children who once mocked you for your heritage." "I do not condone" "Spock," she interrupts, and she is striving to maintain her calm but she is angry, and she has not been angry in so long it tastes foreign. "Your father is going to Earth. Could you not go with him?" "I have no desire to visit the planet," he replies, moving past her and up the stairs. "I will stay with my mother." She did not mean to say itdoes not mean it to be taken in a negative way. He is simply ignoring one facet of his biology, and as he changes and shifts into someone she does not know, she wishes that he would find something to trigger a regression of sorts. He performs admirably, always. But he is no longer hers. She does not think he is even his mother's, or his own. He belongs to his conflicts and struggles. She does not know how to remind him that, before Surak, Vulcan belonged to its conflicts and struggles and nearly destroyed itself. 05. He blows up a lab.

It was nonsense, of course: the child's abilities were like a whisper in a room full of people shouting, but she has of late looked at Spock and thought: He could kill us with his brain. And yet still there are small moments, as they both sit in the library as she looks through biology files and medicinal journals and he, more and more frequently, reads on the philosophies of Surak instead of the planetary and astrological informational texts, where he is flickers into being as her old Spock. "Do you wish to be the next Surak?" she inquires, partially facetious and partially genuinely curious. "Without Surak's teachings Vulcans would be as warlike as we suppose Romulans to be. The predisposition to feel emotions with violence and within an instant is inherent in all Vulcans, and thus it is necessary to meditate and practice strong self-control." "Yes," she agrees, placing down her file and looking at him. "I am half-Human," he says. "My burden is greater; I will attempt to complete the Kolinahr." "The Kolinahr." "Yes." She does not say that she thinks he is attempting to prove for the last time his worth in Vulcan society; to become one or the other when biologically he is neither Human nor Vulcan.

But as she has not ever experienced such a crisis of identity, she does not say as much; she has always ever been entirely Vulcan. Her perspective is one of privilege and she is aware of it and how negative his response would They are 16, and he blows up an entire wing of labs. Professor Sacchek be and how utterly unappreciated the comment would be. She does know emerges singed and smoking, but Spock is in the dining hall and no one can that he has struggled with the conflict for all the time she has known him; if directly point the finger at him. this will settle him she cannot say anything against it. That does not mean that she does not know of his guilt, cannot feel the "I am sure you will excel if you have truly decided upon this course," she vicious warm curl of satisfaction tinged with deep greens and reds, a feeling says. He is already surpassing many of their peers in his control over his so strong that he cannot seem to keep it from transmitting through their emotions. bond. But Spock does not settle for excellent when he could have within tenths of She does not ask him, and he does not offer the information, does not let percentages of perfection. her into his confidence as he once would. But then, perhaps the fault is with She watches him go after what he wants with a determination that borders her; she would have sat beside him and forced the tale out of him, assured on obsessiveness, and 16 fades into 17, which becomes 18 without her him that she was on his side because she could not countenance being noticing the appreciable passage of time. anywhere else. She turns to her own studies, and yet, by the time she is twenty, she finds They are growing apart, and there seems to be little she can do to stop it. that she is tired of defending Spock. She loves him dearlyshe would He is driven; he will someday be the best of them all, but she finds herself house his katra and grieve him were he lost, but she is finding herself wondering if she wants to be the wife of the best. If she is willing to settle having difficulty being so defined by Spock. for duty, for honor and a politically intelligent alliance void of a present 06. husband. This, she knows is the true crux of the matter: even when he is She is 18 when she meets Stonn. present, he is not there, his mind pulled away into the stars to where she has neither desire nor inclination to follow. He is not of their clan, and he is not aesthetically appealing; his ears stick out from his head, which is flat on the top, and his nose droops slightly, but He rarely socializes with any of them; he recognizes the resentment and his mind is vibrant purples and the green of the plants which grow in the fear in the rest of their peers; the distrust of the multitudes, and rather than oasis gardens. His mind is open, and he is not persistent, and there are no thrust himself against their bigotry he instead outdoes them all, and then fantasies thrust at her, and a flush curls at the nape of his neck as he goes back to his home. He is very close with his mothereveryone knows catches and holds her gaze. that to insult Amanda Grayson is to inspire the wrath of Spock, and no one wants that. He is not a child, and will not attack them physically (though apparently he might blow up their offices with them inside), but as Vulcans discovered so long ago physical violence is not the only way to exact vengeance.

The first time they kiss it is an almost accidental brush of fingers, his sliding against hers. She feels heavy and warm, her breathing evening and slowing and the space at the base of her mind fills with the vibrant colors of Stonn's mind. It is not the mind she is used to, and it is no replacement for Spock even without the bond, Spock's mind will always be more vibrantly There was a young human telepath her mother dealt with who had looked at enigmaticbut it is open and without any pretext other than attraction and T'Pring solemnly and said, "I can kill you with my brain." respect. As the flirtation stretches into months, she tells her mother of it.

Her mother smoothes her hand over T'Pring's hair and says, "It is logical to experiment with others. If becoming S'chn T'gai Spock's mate is distasteful, then you have the right to challenge it. Why not discover now, while you are young, whether you would like to, rather than be surprised when the time comes." T'Pring looks at her, and Mother presses a kiss to her fingertips fondly. "It is remarkable to me that it has taken you so long to come to this point where another has caught your attention." "I am loyal." She feels defensive; protective of him. The image all of Vulcan seems to have of him is so at odds with the reality she knows, even if he is a solitary, driven man, Spock is still exceptional and worthy of respect and not their fear and bigotry. "Your affection for him may be strong, but consider, T'Pring: is this affection romantic and sexual in nature, or affectionately platonic and familial?" It is, of course, the problem exactly. 11 years of being bonded is more than half of her life thus far. She does not know how to be without him in the back of her mind, and now that she is examining it, perhaps it is cowardice. Perhaps she clings to a boy she knew, who used to laugh until she taught him not to, who told her she spoke too much and who went out with his pet into the wilderness despite warnings against it, who melded with technology in order to fix her computers for her. She does not know this man, who is quietly self-contained, whose only confidant is his mother; who has a chip on his shoulder wider than the planet. Her loyalty is to their past, but she feels no future with him. She seeks Stonn out, pushes him back into his apartment and kisses him. It is clumsy, and clinical, but exhilarating somehow. She feels She feels as though she is not doomed and heavy with responsibility, with only part of her life stretching before her with any appeal. No longer are her studies the things which bring her joy and satisfaction. Stonn expects her to be responsible for nothing, and she has no cause to be. He is not bound to her, nor she to himtheir coming together is not one chosen by their parents or clan politics, but one of choice. She did not realize how liberating that would be. She does not think of Spock at all for an entire weekend; it is as though the bond has gone dead, though of course it has not. It has simply lapsed from disinterest and disuse, and for once she fails to be conscious of it. They are both letting go it has simply taken her longer to realize that they have outgrown each other, or grown apart, despite her best effortsand perhaps despite his, as it is entirely possible that, though she finds it lacking, this was his best effort.. Perhaps she needed to be shown the way; perhaps she is the proverbial horse which can be led to water but not forced to drink. She has always come to conclusions and revelations in her own time; this matter seems no different. She thinks that she can have both Stonn and Spock; keep the political balance of the clan satisfied while having a life and a partnership which will please her. Stonn may keep his bondmate, she may keep hers, and they will meet in the middle, and be satisfied. Perfect logic. 07. She assumes that he will apply to the Vulcan Science Academywhere else can he learn and master the Kolinahr? She has no doubt that they will accept him; his transcript is flawless, he tests perfectlyto deny him would be to admit a bias. And so, when she receives a request that she come to see him at his home, she assumes it is to tell her in person the good news.

"What?" she says. She cannothave heard correctly. "I am leaving for Starfleet," Spock repeats. She looks at him, clamping down hard on the part of her which attempts to be glad of what this means. "But Spock. Surely the Science Academy accepted your application." "They have. I declined." "You declined. No Vulcan declines." "As I am half-Human that statement continues to be true." She looks at him, suddenly impatient. "It is illogical to continue to be so sensitive to the comments of others regarding your birth, Spock. What you have done is indeed a feat, giving your genetic make-up." "It is not logical to continuously disdain a member of the community. Where is the impetus to excel without proper motivation?" "Some consider the motivation of adversity to be adequate." "Those who so do have only their intelligence called into question." "You have decided entirely." It is not logical to continue arguing if he has decided completely, and yet she wants to meld with him to make him see how foolish he is being; how stubborn; how much like them he is. "I have." "I will return.when it is time." He is, naturally, referring to the plak tow and Pon Farr in the circuitous manner which they all refer to it; embarrassed by these last vestiges of their primal heritage. They couch it in ceremony, pretend to honor it as a part of them, and yet they all resent it for the interruption it possesses; for the slap in the face to their culture it isfor the inherent contradiction it represents. Even Surak did not find a complete solution for dealing with itlogically it serves a biological function, and yet logic cannot control it. "Spock," she sighs. She reaches and takes his hand, pressing her fingers to his affectionately, as she would a sibling, a dear cousin or friend. "I trust," he says with a wry look to his eyes that means he knows of Stonn, "that you will not suffer my absence." It is a sour note to leave on, but any protestations would be lies and so she lets him withdraw his hand from hers and turn back to his home to where his mother is undoubtedly waiting to help him pack; to leave. A week later, Spock is gone, and Vulcan seems the quieter for it. She thought that, as they had let the bond lay by the wayside, that she would not feel his absence so acutely, but she is aware of it in every movement. There is never a wave of condescension or anger or pride or vindication coming from an external source. A week after he has been gone she finds herself watching a sunset with no discernible pleasure, and it feels as though she must rediscover herself. The bond tells her he is still alive, but she grieves in any eventshe is unable to help it. Stonn watches her with quiet concerned gray-blues in his mind, and she slides her fingers along his, and draws him to bed. She wants to know him just as herself. 08. He returns for his mother's birthday some six years later. It is a landmark, and thus the entire clan is there; Amanda Grayson is Sarek's wife, and the clan, at least, will not allow her to be exiled. For six years T'Pring has been waiting for her experimentation with Stonn to wanperhaps not waiting for, but there was an expectation that she would logically drift from him, and look to new partners. They live now as husband

and wife, and she finds herself more and more wishing to meet the children they would make; wishing to know what it would be like if they were bonded. It is unnerving. She had expected the dalliance to be just that: a sexual dalliance. Instead he is the one who keeps her frustrations and stories of her daily life, and she his. He is the hand she reaches for when she is on uncertain ground, andand it is unnerving. More unnerving is that she does not know that Spock is on Vulcan until the moment she turns and catches him in profile, leaning down to listen to what Amanda Grayson is saying, his hand on her back. He seemsmore Human.

"Jim", his voice strangely indulgent, as though if he found that the man had given the admiralty or the doctor heart failure that he would be more amused than appalled. It isfascinating. "No," she says to Stonn, turning to give Spock his space. "Nothing." She has at least seven years more before the plak tow sets in; before she has to make a decision regarding the rest of her life. She can have Stonn for now, and Spock can have his Jim.

Perhaps in so many years time he will no longer want her; perhaps he will She cannot help but broadcast the surprise through their bond; a flick of an embrace his human side even further than he already has, and will choose eyebrow tells her that he is reading her as clearly as ever, and he makes his to endure the Pon Farr with his human mate. way through the crowds. She thinks he is both taller and leaner than he It is possible. Or he could have Jim, and she could have Stonn, and they used to be, but his shoulders do not hunch, and his chin is not lifted could endure Pon Farr together. defensively anymore. He hassettled, she thinks, to some degree. She allows Stonn to secret them away, and she takes his hand and draws Spock lifts his eyebrow at her, takes her hand in greeting. "T'Pring." her fingers along it, watching his eyes slide shut and his lips part in pleasure. She could watch him unravel for hours; it is not logical, and "Spock." sometimes she wishes she was still close enough to Spock to be able to say "How are you?" to him, "I am well. How are you enjoying Starfleet?" "I think that I might want to have Stonn and our bond is not one "It is most challenging." He says it genuinely, and she is glad for him. "And what do you do?" "I teach." He may be expanding upon that, but she is distracted by the realization that he has a bruise on his neckno. Not a bruise in the sense that a "bruise" is characterized by violence, but a bruise inflicted by an amorous lover's mouth. She still cannot lift a single eyebrow, but both will suffice, even involuntarily. She had thought him to be asexual, but perhaps that was not it. He is her bondmate, but she has chosen another, and yet still she experiences a moment of illogical jealousy as she once felt against T'Ren when they were young. He lifts a single eyebrow back at her in challenge to give voice to the questions ("Why this person?" "Do you wish to dissolve the bond?" "What are we, precisely?" "Are you as tired of this as I?") but she does not ask, and he does not offer any explanations. She does not know this Spock. This Spock walks with purpose; turns away from high council members to answer his comm; is unembarrassed by the physical evidence of a sexual encounter; says the correct words in the wrong tone of voice "live long and prosper" has never sounded more like an insult than it does when it passes through his lips. She loses track of him, though most certainly he is being attentive to his mother, and will be found at her side. T'Pring steps outside to watch the sunset to see if his proximity will render it beautiful and dear to her again. "Jim," Spock is saying into his comm, watching the sunset at a remove from the rest of the gathering. There is something warm in his voice, fond and golden and blue even as his voice sounds formal. "I do not understand why yes. The point is not to" he breaks off, and she sees the smile in the way his shoulders have slid back, in the way his forehead smoothes, in the way that his left foot bears more of his weight. "You are correct. I never took the Kobayashi Maru. I have, however designed it." There is another pause. "Assisting you in cheating would be illogical." Pause, and a quick eyebrow arch, a flush of heat, visceral and unexpected as a punch. "Yes, even given that dataset." "Something of interest?" Stonn inquires, fingers sliding down hers in a way that makes her turn to him, press against his side and indulge in the comfort of his presence, in the easy access of his mind which is always welcoming and will never shut her out. "I will be home in two days," Spock continues. "Attempt not to give any of the admiralty heart failure in my absencenor Doctor McCoy," Spock tells predestined, and I have no baseline to judge this from except to know that it is not the norm, but I feel for him a passion that I cannot control and against my best judgment and in the face of all logic I I think I am in love." Because Spock was the keeper of her secrets when they were young, and the bond is still there, and will remain until he goes into Pon Farr and she has to decide between a man she hold great affection for but whom she does not know any longer but was promised to, and the man she adores as a mate who has no claim over her. She says nothing; projects nothing, and in two days time he takes a ship back to Earth, and she does not hear from him again. She is learning to tell Stonn these things, and he learning to tell her, but some things are best left unsaid until one is certain of their veracity; otherwise they may cause unintentional harm. 09. It has been six months since she has last seen Spock, and she is stretched on a bed in the dry heat, windows open and chimes rustling in the faint breeze. Her calves are over Stonn's shoulders, her heels digging into his back as his tongue presses against her clit, sucking and pressing and swirling until she is here, damp in the dry heat in a dreamy state of disconnectan indulgence she is permitting herself. The ground shakes, and Stonn lifts his head curiously. She turns her head, barely registering how absurd he looks with the lower half of his face glistening before he wipes it on a sheet, as a rolling tremor follows, so strong that the dry dusty dirt rises from the ground and flows through the air with prejudice. She grabs her robe, presses it over her nose and mouth and squints against itthere is an impossibly bright light on the horizon, but it is not the sun. Behind the tremor, now, follows a roaring din. The collective conscious panicsit is blacks and browns and violent reds tinged with pale blues and she has flashes of of a line of fire from the atmosphere burrowing into the ground, into Vulcan itself, and this cannot be natural. It cannot bethey are under attack. They must be. She stares in horror, aware that her mask has slipped, aware that she is fast losing her grip on her emotions but her planet is going to be destroyed, and someone must have called Starfleet they must be evacuating. Someone must be doing something, though if they are she cannot sense it, not even with the collective consciousness blown open and wholly accessible. "T'Pring, what is" Stonn begins, trailing off, his words a bewildered yellow as he freezes.

"I do not know," she replies, wrapping her hand around his and pulling him back inside, away from the window, where there is an illusion of safety under ceilings and surrounded by walls. She picks up her commif anyone knows what is going on, it will be T'Pau. "What is it?" she demands when she gets through to T'Pau's residence. "Starfleet has been notified," Storrik says calmly from the other end. "They are sending the fleet to evacuate until measures can be takenit is believed Vulcan is experiencing" "Yes," she cuts in, impatient as lives are lost closest to ground zero, each feeling like a stab wound. "I can see what Vulcan is experiencing. Please keep me informed of any more discoveries as they are made." The shaking grows, and it becomes difficult to keep her footing. She thinks, logically or not, that it must stop: that at some point the tremors (and that is such a mild word for what these violent wrenching, heaving convulsions are) must cease. Even as she is having that thought the house begins to crumble apart, long cracks that grow and splinter and then wrench apart suddenly, as if on a vindictive whim. The ground finally yeilds to the pressure and outside she can see it wrench apart, jagged edges sliding up and over each other as though at war.

Be safe she wills at him, bond thrown as open as she can, but she does not know if she is if he can receive it, over the sound of all of their dying screams. Because they are all dying, and they all know it. Do not grieve, she sends. Live long and prosper. She feels cold, and thinks she will just close her eyes for a moment. Then she will send him another message: Run. She does not. I Promise You waldorph Summary: She's just a girl in an old dress and a black overcoat with purple hair, and she marries Sam Kirk. Work Text:

1. She's always liked books. Hard books, the kind where you have to turn the pages and that take on that certain smell, where the ink will never change to She cannot decide if gripping so tightly to Stonn's hand is a help or a reflect an author's newest updated change, no matter how matter how many hazard, as he is so much bigger than she, and if he falls she will be dragged politically incorrect or factually incorrect sentences there are. with him yet she cannot bring herself to let go, even as she realizes that her planet is going to wrench itself apart and she is considering the relative She likes to think of them as their own contained worlds: more personal than a file on a computer, more tangible, somehow. merits of hand holding. "Run!" she barks, and her voice sounds rough and high at the same time, and it is fearit is pure fear that she is feeling, that is making her breath come too fast and her chest clench in terror. It becomes hot the further into the house they go, and she realizes, as they round a corner, that this is because the equipment has lit on fire, which is spreading outwards, consuming the house in a merrily garish frenzy. The air is thick with smoke and sand and dust and her eyes are streaming constantly, and the cacophony of screams and panic and mindless terror from all other Vulcans is making it impossible for her to make a rational judgement call. She looks at Stonn, and says, foolishly, "I wanted to meet our children." He stares at her, and then swallows, because Vulcans do not lie, and so he cannot tell her that they will survive this. "I did too," he says instead, and kisses her, and it feels like goodbye. She likes reading them out loud, and being able to fold a page to keep her place, and write in the margins. She likes the smell of them, and the way that the ink raises off of the page ever so slightly. There is something intimidating about a book whose spine hasn't been broken yet, and something dearly welcoming about a book whose pages have softened and yellowed. It's one of the reasons she went to Woolf- besides the fact that it's one of the premier institutes of Federation-wide literary studies- they deal in hard books. 2. She's late for class. She's always late for class, to be fair. By three minutes. No matter what she does.

She has her coffee clutched tightly in her hand (black, because if you're They have run from the fire as far as they can, and the house is now coming going to drink coffee? Drink coffee) and her bag over her shoulder, heavy in down around them, wrenching in large pieces which plummet through the the way that no one else's will be because next to her tablet she floor, sticking up like graves, which is morbidly appropriate. has Hamlet, The Republic, The Merchant of Venice and The Jew of Malta. Books are heavy. She cannot breath, and she has lost Stonnher hand is closed around nothing, and she cannot find him, and the loss halts her. She scans the "Motherfucker," a voice says. crumbling wreckage of their home for him, but she can neither see nor And the thing is, she has now two minutes to get to class to be three sense himhe is gone to her, and perhaps it is fitting that in that moment minutes late. the floor slips from underneath her and she loses her footing. The archway hurtles down and crushes her legs, and there will be no escape for her, she And she might make it, but she kind of doubts it. realizes. She is going to die here most assuredlythe only question is So she turns to look at the guy who is watching the billboard scrolling Crew whether she is crushed to death or burned alive. of U.S.S. Kelvin to Be Honored in Federation-Wide Memorial on 15th Another beam falls on her chest and she coughs, hacks and wrenches an Anniversary of Destruction. arm so she can attempt to push it off, because survival instinct is stronger He looks like it's a slap in the face: personal. even than logic. She can taste blood every time she coughs, and she "It's a publicity gambit," she says. "After the fiasco with Tarsus and the fact cannot breathe now at all. that the president almost lost the election. Nothing unites us like grief." Her vision is going dim, and then it bursts like a red sunset, warm and dear "It's exploitative." and familiar. Spock she realizes. Spock is on Vulcan. "Sure. But they're politicians," she snorts, shifting her bag.

He looks at her. He has brown hair and hazel eyes- tall and wiry, and his He's tense and unhappy, accepting praise and commendation for a dead hair is too long, but not in the moppy way of an Literature student. In the I'm- father, and she takes his hand in hers and doesn't let go. So-Distracted-I'm-Pulling-It-Out way of a Science student. He looks at her at the reception, and he looks so tired that she just leans "I'm Aurie. Aurelan, but Aurie," she says, shifting her coffee to her other over and kisses him softly, leaning their foreheads together. hand and extending it. A man who introduces himself as "Captain Pike" comes over to talk to Sam He has big hands, and his grin is crooked when he smiles. "Sam." "Well," she says. "Class is a bust. C'mon, I'll take you out to breakfast and you can whinge about the Federation." "I don't want to whine- " he starts, and she gives him a look. "Okay, fine. But I want to go to Karl's." Karl's is a campus favorite, and it's a Terran-style diner. Which doesn't make him Terran, necessarily, but she thinks he is. "The thing is," he says over bacon, "they're going to ask me to go, because I'm the one with a stable address." "Why?" she demands, weeding through the platter for the fattiest bits. "Because Mom's in deep space for this exact reason, and Jim's a minor." "Soyour father was on it." He looks at her like he's surprised she doesn't know, which she thinks is a bit rich, because how could she? She's only inferring it was his father because she's being heteronormative. "Yeah," he says. "George Kirk." "Ah. Bollocks for you," she snorts, and drinks her third cup of coffee. "Yeah," he agrees. He's from the United States of America; Iowa. Lived there his entire life until he came to the Meyer's Institue for Biology here on Erandia. She tells him about her mother, who's from London and still lives thereoriginal London, not the planet- and about the father who is a brilliant writer but whose depression sends him spiraling through the galaxy. He makes fun of her accent, and she calls him uncultured, and then programs her number into his comm. "Call me," she instructs. He does. They sit in the library while he doeswhatever it is that biologists do. She writes papers about how Will stole from all his contemporaries and on his usage of rural and urban landscapes to dictate tone. "You call him "Will,'" Sam says dubiously. "Shut up, our bond goes deep." "Oh my god," he laughs, carding a hand through his hair. "You're so insane. Like, on an incomprehensible level you're insane." "You're jealous," she sniffs, but she's grinning because she can't help it. "Hey, Aurie." "Mm?" she asks, flipping through Hamlet. She's halfway through writing about how Gertrude's inability to hear or see the ghost effectively kills the only thing keeping Hamlet's sanity, and by extension behavior, in check when she realizes he hasn't said anything. "Sam?" "That memorial. Would you- go?" "Oh. But what will I wear?" He grins at her, and then leans back, tension melting from his shoulders. "Not that ugly-ass sweater. Lit students, I swear." "Get a haircut, Kirk." 3. It's the first time she ever sees him as George Samuel Kirk Jr. about banalities, offering token apologies and Sam has long since checked out.

She's just a girl in an old dress and a black overcoat with purple hair, and she can't scare them away from him even if she wants to- which she does, almost desperately. But then the fifth admiral comes over something in Sam snaps and he lifts his head slightly even as he looks out from under his eyebrows. His shoulders shift back a fraction, and his voice hits a lower register. They back off, and she pulls him back to the hotel and kisses him. "That was hot," she informs him as she shoves off his shirt. He grins with a dangerous edge and presses her against the wall, fingers pressing into her ass, and the first time they have sex is like that- up against a wall, half-dressed, and unprotected. They both are responsible graduate students in the morning and get tested and buy condoms, and she's on birth control anyway; got the hypo when she turned 16, and she'll get the antidote when she's ready for kids not beforeand she liked it, being wet and feeling him, really feeling him. The don't talk about his father, ever. He doesn't want to. But he'll talk about Jim, his genius younger brother who's too smart and too fast and somehow stuck where he is. There's adoration and guilt there- he left Jim, but staying would have killed him. He'll talk about his mother, who is brave and reckless and not like a mother so much as an archetype- and about the stepfather who never really fit; who maybe they never let fit. 4. She doesn't worry about Sam, because he can handle himself. Because he takes his father's legacy and sets it aside, dusts it off when he's tired of crashing against a wall, but he puts it away. Sam lets her in, can talk about things- about Jim. She can't help but worry about Jim, because he's just a kid. She writes essays on Hamlet, about a bored teenaged boy with a lost father and thinks not about Sam, because Sam must be like their mother: able to rescue himself, but of Jim. She hopes his ghosts don't drive him mad. They've been together for a year when the phone call comes from Jim. Sam's honestly shouting, and that's what rouses her, and when she frowns at him sleepily in question he snaps, "Stepfather just hit my brother." She's furious and protectively angry in a second, even for a boy she's never met. "He did what?" He has that face he had with the admirals, except dangerous now; the face that says "I am Kirk, hear me roar." Jim doesn't come to live with them, and Sam pretends not to be relieved but he really is, and then he throws himself into work. They move to Miranda (or Earth Outpost II, as it's more commonly known, but she's not calling her new homeworld "Earth Outpost II") and buy a house- the kind of house that you buy when you want to fill it with children. She fills it with books and they buy a cat, whom she promptly names Henry VIII, because he's reddish and fat and entitled and she has an unhealthy fascination with Tudor-era England.

Sam proposes after three years- well. He proposes in that he bought her a ring. She does most of the talking, because he's a biologist, and she's accepted that he's actually kind of terrible with words. Their friends are a weird hodgepodge of scientists and doctors and writers and lit professors, but it's a big group and theyfit. Happily. Neatly. Jim doesn't respond to the invitation, and Sam acts like it doesn't bother him, but it's an act. She can read him like a book. She knows how his hand will twitch when he's thinking abou this job; how he avoids mirrors when he's thinking about his family; how he won't wear jeans and a t-shirt coupled together when he's determinedly not thinking about Jim. The months before their wedding he's avoiding mirrors like the plague and he's going to wear out his khakis and blazers if he wears them one more day. So, a month days before their wedding she hands him a ticket and The Ultimate HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy and says, "Just go see him, Sam." He's back in three days, and he looks bruised and wrecked, and she smoothes her hand over his head and lets him lean into her as he tells her Jim's 18 and going to die of alcoholism, and she wants to hate his family a little for making him so worried for them- for not being what he needs. But that's not how family works, and she knows that, because she doesn't even know where her father is and her mother is going to make her crazy if she doesn't stop talking about English roses and how tragic it is that Aurie can't legitimately wear white.

"Two founding planets?" "No one is codemixing Mandarin." "We could be. I could be a Browncoat." Aurie bites her lip against a laugh, raising her eyebrows. "Captain?" Uhura says, looking long-suffering. "Admiral Archer wants- " Jim and Sam both look over at Archer, and Sam glances at Aurie, who grins slightly, as Jim makes a face. "I don't want to." "Captain," Uhura prompts through her teeth. "Don't make me get Dr. McCoy." "You're just mad because he's not here. I thought he'd be here," Jim says, glancing around the terminal. "Right, fine. Let's go kiss ass." He castes a lingering look around one last time with his blue eyes, and then sighs. "Right. So, Sam? See you in five years, Aurie, really nice to meet you. And Pete. Well. You're in good hands, little man." And then he's gone, enfolded in the crew who wrap around him like a coat, and the shuttle takes off towards the space dock. "You know, everyone's so surprised," Sam says, taking Pete and holding him close. "They don't know him like you do," she says, and glances over to the shuttles, where a Vulcan is striding purposefully towards a shuttle, wearing a science officer's insignia on his blue tunic. "I wish Spock was going with him," Sam murmurs as they head to the shuttle that will take them to London to visit her mother.

And then Jim sends them a quote from the Hitchiker's Guide that makes her "Oh, I think it will be all right," she says blithely. laugh until her sides hurt, because Jim's fine, and he likes Hamlet. Fine may 5. be too strong a word- but he will be. He's trying to tell Sam not to worry. Jim sends them the most amazing gifts every time she gets pregnant. With Pete, it's a stork made out of diapers. They're kind of adorably dysfunctional, and Sam goes out and buys a hard copy of the book and cuts out that bit- he puts it in his pocket on their With Xander, it's a teddy bear made of diapers. wedding day. With Jules, it's a puppy made out of diapers. She pretends she doesn't see. Jim Kirk? Is a genius, because really, what you need when you're having a 4. baby? Is diapers. She meets Jim when they go see the Enterprise off for its five-year mission He sends her books he finds in new worlds, and when Pete's old enough he into uncharted space. gets the books too. Pete is six months old, and she's let her brown hair grow out because it's Xander gets odds-and-ends, weird contraptions or bright colors: his room is too much hassle to keep it any other color. a representation of the galaxy as experienced by Jim Kirk. He's shorter than Sam, and his edges are rougher. Sam has tamed and managed those sharp edges of his personality until they're just odd angles- Jules, being only a year old when Jim first comes back for his review (his first review; they're undoubtedly going to send him back into space), has Jim wears them outright, and masks them with a smile that is, admittedly, only a strange stuffednitrogen-based being thing, which he drools on very charming. happily. "Are you bringing a towel?" she asks when he turns to her after having a Sam never gets anything, and he never gets Jim anything. They never get moment with Sam. their mother anything, and she never gets them anything- that doesn't seem He blinks at her and then laughs, and there he is- there's the boy she's been to be how the three of them are. worrying for and laughing at even though she's never really met him. This is "Well, I had the kids," Sam says when Aurie asks. the Jim Kirk Sam talks about. She raises an eyebrow- she doesn't remember him squeezing the baby out "I'm hoping that it stands. I'm promulgating it- my chief engineering officer of a very narrow hole and screaming his head off. has already taken it to heart," he says, waving at the improbably named Scott, who is, in fact, a Scot. Well, maybe the first time because she bit him. She'd been in pain. "No- I mean. We have kids, and Jim goes and saves the galaxy. That way the kids never get left behind like we did, and" he shrugs. "I don't want to do his job." There are holos of Sam's father in the trunk at the foot of their bed; of his mother and his father and Sam as a small child. In one of them, Sam wants "You'll have to visit us on Miranda," she says. He blinks at her, and then casts a horrified look at Sam. "You moved to a planet called Miranda?" he demands. "Are you trying to die? Miranda?" "There's no Pax in the air, Jim. And no Alliance either. God, I told Mom that shit was going to warp your brain," Sam mutters.

to go up with his parents, and the look of total devastation on his face when they laughingly tell him he can't makes her want to cry. 4. Jim comes to visit during his five-year review with his Vulcanwell, husband, because she's not stupid and theirs is a love which dares not speak its name.

"I know what you were just," she says, because she does. Because he's got the Kirkian look in his eye that means he wants to study something- his brother and his brother's husband, at that- and come hell or high water he's going to. Well, she's his wife. Hell and high water have nothing on her.

Big Damn Heroes He leans against Sam and takes up all the energy in the house, and she waldorph watches, amused, as Sam cedes it to him- when Jim walks through the door it's like Sam just not fades, not really. Just sits back and watches, like he Summary: knows a show's about to start and he can't wait to see it, but he has no Chekov is growing up on a Starship. It's harder than you'd think. desire to participate. Winona does the same thing, now that she thinks Work Text: about it. Spock doesn't, which makes her laugh a little. He sits and watches, but he's 1. "According to Starfleet's records they're a cautious people," Rand informs never overshadowed. He's always very there, and maybe that's because them, looking at her tricorder. "Um, technologically advanced, possible Jim is so aware of him all the time that the rest of them can't help but be. telepaths but that's never been establishedthere's a note here about how Jim has wrangled the boys into bed- he likes being an uncle, almost one diplomat thought they were quiet and another thought they were improbably so. He's good with all the boys, but whenever he's around it's telepaths, so. You know, diplomats." madness, so it's only right that he be the one to put them to bed. Kirk gives her a look. "Okay," she says, putting her feet up on the coffee table. "I'm exhausted." "Right! So, um, Starfleet just wants an in-and-out. They prize youth and "I am so sorry," Jim says, sitting on the couch next to Sam, so easy in each intelligence, so obviously you have to take Chekov with you, um, you, other's space. Captain, Lieutenant Uhura, Hinkley, Groaning and Sirbichio as security "What?" Sam asks. personnel." "God- If I was- I was worse than them." "All three of them combined couldn't match you," Sam agrees blithely. "They'd never almost freeze to death and then guilt-trip me." "It was your fault!" "I was nine!" "I was five!" "I rest my case! No five year old goes out and tries to die out of spite," Sam says, throwing up his hands. Pavel perks up- usually he doesn't get to go down to a planet they haven't thoroughly scoped out yet. The listed people are all young, and smart, with an even ratio of males to females. They head to the transporter room and Hikaru takes his hand. "Yeah, right," McCoy snaps. "Like I'm letting them go down without me. Get outta my way," he tells Spock, who lifts an eyebrow. Pavel looks at Hikaru and they share a moment of death! Death is coming! panic. Not that they think Spock will actually kill McCoy, or vice versa, it's just that it always feels that way.

Jim considers this. "Well, logically you can't say "no five year old," because I Kirk rolls his eyes and says, "Fine, yeah, c'mon, Bones." was, in fact, five, so therefore you have at minimum one known example." And then the seven of them are on a planet with bluish-green grass waving He yawns, and Aurie looks at Spock, who looks like maybe he's considering gently in the wind, dotted with orange and blue flowers. The buildings are hypothetically smiling in the near future. That probably means he's cracking rounded and gleaming silver- built into the landscape instead of changing it. up on the inside. It'sreally very beautiful. "He gets more formal when he's tired," Spock explains when Sam looks "Captain Kirk," the Br'x delegation's head says in a voice that sounds oddly at him too. "Jim," he prompts, and Aurie remembers Sam coming home and disjointed and rusty. "I am Eikbar, leader of the Br'x. We are glad to have saying that Jim wanted to know how Sam got her to do things, and wonders you." what that would be like- to experience a marriage as a tug of war. "We're glad to be here. Let me introduce my crew. This is Lieutenant Uhura, "My point was that I was apologizing," Jim says, rousing. Ensign Chekov, Officers Groaning, Sirbichio and Hinkley, and this is Doctor McCoy." "And mine was that you don't have to." "Welcome to Br'x," Eikbar says. "These are my counselors, and you will "Well, I- " have to forgive the crowd: we do not often receive outsiders." Spock stands and straightens his shirt and his sleeves. Jim breaks off, The Br'x people around them are wearing silvery-blue cloaks and dressesmutinously looking at him before saying, "Yeah, fine. We'll see you in the their skin, while blue-tinged, is smooth and soft. Pavel knows this to be the morning." mark of an advanced civilization; even the kings of planets stuck in what Aurie raises her eyebrows at Sam after they've gone. "Telepathy?" would be the equivalent to Earth's dark ages and earlier have rough, callused hands. But the Br'x are smooth-handed and skinned, squinting "Oh god, my brother's bonded to a Vulcan," Sam groans, stretching out on the couch. He perks up suddenly. "Oh, suddenly this repeated conversation against their three suns' light as though unused to it. He can't imagine living about Vulcan biology and impregnation- " he gets a speculative look on his in a place like this and not spending time outside: he grew up in Siberia. If he'd played outside he would have frozen stiff in about six minutes. face and she throws a pillow at him. The captain is letting Uhura talk, which either means he's not paying "Stop that." attention, or it means that things are going well. A brief glance around "I was just- "

suggests it's the latter: the officers all look relatively relaxed as they track the Br'x people, and Dr. McCoy is only scowling a little. Eikbar is nodding, and Uhura gestures Pavel forward a little. "Chekov is twenty one," she says. "He is our helmsman, and among Starfleet considered highly intelligent." Eikbar's smile is slippery, and he's not quite good enough an actor not to look hungry at that. Kirk's arm hits Chekov's lightly, and Pavel relaxes. They can look, and if him being smart helps than he's all for it- but he doesn't feel threatened. It makes a nice change, actually. 2. Stardate: three years earlier He was the baby of the ship. He knew it, they knew it, and the fact that he wasn't even eighteen when they first set off made them all really overprotective of him. He didn't usually go down on missions with the captain (because those are inevitably always hiked up to RED ALERT by virtue of the captain going); they saved him ice cream; sometimes people glanced at him uncertainly and asked if he was even old enough to drink. He gives them looks, and he can't drink Scotty under the table yet but give him time. Genetics are on his side. Dr. McCoy he wasn't sure about, though. That man was a highly functioning alcoholic, or else just really good at pretending he was.

It's just Kirk, who reaches over for no reason Pavel can discern and wraps his hand tightly around Pavel's forearm, locking his elbow. Pavel is about to ask him what he's doing, but then it becomes clear. The Br'x civilians around them shrug off coats to reveal body armor, thin and silver, and Eikbar says something in that strangely rough and disjointed voice but Pavel can't hear because there are hands- so so many of those soft, never-seen-a-day-of-work hands on him, wrenching and dragging him away from Uhura who makes a belated grab for him, and there's no one but the Br'x and Kirk. Because there is definitely Kirk, his jaw set and his eyes flashing fucking murder, refusing to let go, his fingers digging bruises into Pavel's arm and threatening to wrench it from its socket, and Pavel watches him because looking anywhere else might scare him too much to even think. Starfleet is so full of shit when they do their "evaluations"- next planet they're going down with a full complement of guards and at least three Vulcans, just to make sure that they're covered. He's sure that the landing party is fighting back, but Pavel's whole world has centered on the hands on him and the murder in Kirk's eyes. The Br'x clearly decide separating them will be too hard and take them both, wrenching them off their feet and the whole abduction is strangely silent, except for the snarling sound Kirk makes, pissed beyond the ability to form sentences, apparently, and Pavel has a moment of wanting to tell the Br'x to stop; that Kirk will blow up the whole planet; that it's not worth it.

But they've dragged them away and he can hear the sound of the Enterprise beaming up the rest of the landing party- advanced society, must The crew tweaked the communication programs to recognize Russian, and be scrambling his and Kirk's location- and when he turns to look he gets hit then Kirk decided it was a really good idea, so once they were far away in the face with something very hard. There's a ringing in his ears that grows enough from Starfleet's monitoring systems he let Scotty and Uhura work on louder every time they hit him before he finally passes out. making the systems recognize all of their individual identification codes in their native languages. It was like double protection, which wasn't regulation 4. Their first shore leave was to a planet with a reputation for partying and with at all but kind of amazing, and fun to hear, because McCoy's drawl got the tagline "What happens on Alpha Vega stays on Alpha Vega" (which deeper and Uhura spoke Swahili and there were the strangely atonal made Kirk and McCoy snort laughter, so it must have been an American sounds of Vulcan that he just loved to hear. And it wasn't regulation, but thing), and Pavel had to go buy civilian clothing, which was embarrassing. it wassmart and considerate and the kind of thing family did for each other, and they were (are) a family. They were the kind of family that he didn't He bought jeans and a t-shirt because those seemed safe, and then picked think any of them really ever had- dysfunctional and tight-knit and up a brown leather jacket because once he saw Kirk wearing one and he annoyingly in each other's business. might have been wanting one ever since he was fifteen. It was great, except for when it wasn't, and it wasn't more and more, Maybe. especially when the older crew members headed off chieftain's daughters Anyway. who smiled at Pavel in sweet invitation- or sons, Pavel'd never really had time to figure out what his sexuality was beyond "Yes, please!" And he was He was eighteen and a half, and so he went to the first club he saw, nevergoing to figure the whole sexuality thing out becausewell, living on a determined not to leave until he'd at least kissed someone. He drank ship of 400 people made it next to impossible to fumble into sex without enough to be pleasantly buzzed, because vodka was a great confidencefeeling like he was under a microscope. booster and he needed some. Everyone knew that Hikaru and Uhura had a relationship- very brief, and "That's not strong?" a girl asked him. She was wearing this blackwell, it Spock and Kirk were totally married and had been since before Kirk was wasn't a dress, more like a thing that shouted HERE ARE MY BREASTS, even at Starfleet at all. Pavel thought Nurse Chapel and Doctor McCoy were SQUEEZE THEM and also IF I SPREAD MY LEGS SLIGHTLY YOU together, and Scotty had Mira right now and Uhura was with some COULD FUCK ME RIGHT HERE, THIS SKIRT IS SO SHORT. geologist- so maybe it was just him who was uncomfortable living outthat "Not where I'm from," he replied, trying not to stare but really- they were kind of a thing under such close scrutiny. just right there. She grinned at him, looking him up and down lazily and Maybe he was the only one, but he had nevernot ever. He didn't hopping onto the stool next to him. Her tongue slid over her bottom lip- her know how and he was too embarrassed to have to ask and paranoid about pierced tongue. searching because what if Starfleet monitored shit like that? He once heard Scotty and Hikaru reminiscing about girlfriends with pierced He was eighteen and his sexual frustration was reaching epic heights, and tongues (and oh god, could he be any more lame?). he was going to have a serious problem very soon if he didn't get laid. "Yeah?" she laughed. "And where are you from, baby?" 3. So he told her about Siberia, possibly babbling but he wasn't there were It goes wrong faster than anyone can really sense; Uhura doesn't stiffen at a no equations for this kind of thing, okay? He is entirely at a loss. word choice the way she sometimes does, McCoy doesn't shift his grip on his tricorder like he's about to bash someone's brain in, none of the security "So it was cold," she summed up, and she had thislook on her face, the officers lift their jaws. one that Kirk got when he was contemplating the Neutral Zone; reckless and dangerous and a little bit fun.

"Very," he agreed. "Mm," she murmured, leaning in and draping an arm over his shoulder, sucking his earlobe into her mouth. "Well. Maybe I could warm you up." He was about to say that he was actually really very hot right now when his brain caught up with him and said in Kirk's voice: She's picking you up. "I would like that," he managed. "Awesome." She took him up to her room, and she pressed him to sit on her bed, and then pushed him all the way down, unbuttoning the fly of his jeans and Pavel tried to think of Spock's angry posture when he and Kirk were fighting that time (pick your favorite) because he was hard, really hard, about to come kind of hard. She grinned, and ran her hands up from his knees to his thighs. "Easy, tiger," she said, and then swallowed him down. He swore, and he might have slipped into Russian but who cared, because she was like not like he expected, it was better, even sloppy with spit running behind his balls, it was better because it was real. She grinned after he came, crawling up him (and how, he wanted to know, was it possible for that dress/thing to still be on her? "How was it?" she asked. "It- good! Very good," he rasped, and when she kissed him it tasted kind of weird and then he realized why and that was hotter than he thought it would be. "You're cute," she informed him, stretching out beside him and tucking him back into his pants. "C'mon. I want to go dancing, let's go." She took him to another club, a little seedier, and he lost her in the crowdthought maybe he saw Kirk, briefly, but that was unlikely, because inevitably Kirk and Spock were doing unspeakable things in a very not-this-place place. "Everybody's looking at you," a guy said, cutting in smoothly in front of Pavel. He held his hip proprietarily, smiling like Pavel's already agreed to have sex with him, and Pavel almost didn't want to because this guy was so entitled, but he wasbeautiful. "Thinking what a piece." Pavelwasn't really sure what he was supposed to say to that, and the guy leaned in, nipping at his neck. "Come home with me." There were whole speeches about safe sex and stranger danger leaping to the forefront of Pavel's mind right then, but he was eighteen and tired of this shit, so he tilted his head up and grinned and said, "Yeah. Okay." The guy fucked him, fingers seeking and twisting and stretching in a way that hurt- it didn't feel good, but Pavel was going to see this through, and then the guy- what the hell was his name, even?- stroked his fingers inside and Pavel was arching off the bed, breathing fast and starting to get hard. When he rolled on a condom, Pavel's calves on his shoulders, he maintained eye contact as he slid in, and even when Pavel was falling apart the other man was just watching him with hooded, lazily amused eyes. After he cleaned Pavel (who was boneless, completely boneless) off and stretched beside him and said, wryly, "Virgin, huh?" "I- " he was beet red, is what he was- terrified he'd done something wrong, even though the guy had come. "Blown anyone?" "NoI- " "Good. I don't have to correct any shitty habits."

There was crap take out to eat, and then Pavel was kneeling between his legs with the guy's hand at the back of his skull with no real idea how he got there. And it tasted weird, and the whole concept was weird, but the hands around his face and on the back of his head were firm and guiding and it was like getting an equation right when the body under his mouth tensed and the guy shoved him off, cupping his cock and striping his hand and the hem of his shirt. "Probably not up to swallowing yet," he explained, and he was just wry, no other word for it, and Pavel could see staying here and just He followed this guy home and blew him and let him fuck him without even knowing his name, and Pavel knows, as he watched the sun rise on the guy's skin, why he seemedfamiliar, somehow. Not visually- aesthetically he didn't remind Pavel of anyone, but he acted like Kirk; entitled, smug. Like Kirk if he didn't have limits or boundaries or Spock. It was like a cautionary tale: there was something in Kirk that stopped him from being this, but- but if he was if he was, he wouldn't just skate around the Neutral Zone; they'd probably have already taken over the Romulan Star Empire. "Stop thinking," the guy said without opening his eyes, and Pavel let himself be distracted for another seventeen hours. 31 hours later he stumbled out of Rhys's (his name was Rhys, Pavel knew this now) apartment and squinted at the sun. He paid a hotel clerk and took a shower in the room he got, and then had to go buy new clothes because his were gross. No one had hailed him, so he picked another club at random, because sex was kind of amazing and not having to answer to anyone, or feel like he was being watched, was even better. 5. He wakes up in a white box. Kirk is still holding him; his wrist, now. It's not a box, but a room: windowless and doorless, probably 10x10x10, which makes the ceiling uncomfortably high. "Captain?" he says once he masters his raging headache. No, that's a lie, and he yanks his hand out of Kirk's grasp to throw up in a corner. Once the room stops spinning he'll be fine. "Just lay down," the captain says hoarsely, "until the ceiling stops moving." "This could be a sign of a concussion," Pavel begins, and the captain's hand flops on his wrist. "No talking." Eventually the ceiling stops spinning, and he sits up and pulls up his sleeve to examine his bruises. "Let the bruises be a surprise," Kirk advises, and so Pavel lets go of his sleeve. There might be some reasoning to that. 6. He was grinding with a bigger man and his girlfriend when Hikaru came into the club on Alpha Vega. He took one look at the goings on, like he could see that Pavel had fucked that girl who wassnorting something off the bar just a few minutes ago, and he grabbed Pavel's hand and hauled him out of the club and into the dark street. "What are you doing?" Pavel demanded angrily as the cool night air hit him and the music became a dull throbbing, like an old bruise. Hikaru looked at him blankly, and Pavel repeated in English, still uncomfortably hard in his stupidly tight pants. "Are you stupid?" Hikaru demanded, shaking him. "You went to a club without any of us, on a strange planet! And apparently had sex! It's been four days! Are you high?" "Just sex!" Pavel argued, shaking him off.

"How is that supposed to be better?" Hikaru demanded, because crazy was crushing his mind. Pavel's terrified, sure, buthe's come out the other end catching, apparently, and he'd gotten the McCoy strain of it. "Oh my god. It's of it, somehow. The terror is manageable, as long as Kirk ishere. like- it's like you've been infected by Kirk. Except he's not like that anymore! And Pavel has to make sure he's here until help arrives. How can you be a slut? You'reChekov!" 8. So Pavel hit him, because he was allowed to do this and he wasn't a "Open up, Chekov," Kirk called. "I have a hypo for the hangover and fucking child, and he liked Hikaru but fuck him. Fuck them all. another for the VDs." Hikaru stared at him from the ground, and then brought a hand to his bloody He opened the door tiredly. His hard-on had subsided, and now he just felt lip, bringing it away to stare at it incredulously. "Okay. Well. That stupid and young, but Kirk just handed him the hypos and said, "Didn't think wasunexpected." you needed the Bones lecture. Though it is a good one- take it from "Enterprise," Pavel said tensely into his comm. "One to beam up." He didn't say anything to Ted, the on-duty tech, just stormed to his quarters and set his privacy code. someone who's heard it a million times." He grinned wryly- and maybemaybe Pavel went for Rhys because he had a thing for the captain?- , and then turns.

"Wait," Pavel sighed. "I just- " He loved his job- loves Starfleet and this ship and the crazy crew. What they were doing was important, and he just fucking hated that he was the one "Got claustrophobic on the ship and was seduced by the lure of anonymity." who wasn't supposed to ever indulge his demons. "Yeah." You could have stayed with Rhys, a part of his brain reminded him. "It wasn't a bad plan." But it rang hollow: he couldn't have. "Hikaru- " Even if he wanted to. 7. Their food materializes: two plates of a strange blue-gray substance that is vaguely sweet, but mostly bland. Kirk, who has a split lip and a black eye and coarse marks around his neck, gives some melodramatic speech about how the young must survive with a wave of his hand. Which means Pavel is supposed to eat his share, which Pavel refuses to do. For three days. It rots because Kirk won't touch it. Or it would rot, but something like a sonic shower happens ever five hours, taking away everything that isn't them. It's very disgruntling. On the fourth day (Pavel is keeping careful track with his watch, because if he loses track of days he's going to scream), they reach a compromise: Pavel eats one and a half portions and Kirk, who never eats, eats the other bits idly. On the fifth day, five of the natives come in. It takes one of them to wrench Pavel into the corner (and maybe he should take Hikaru up on his offers of learning how to do any kind of fighting, because this is embarrassing), but it takes five of them to subdue the captain, who spars with Spock for fun. And there it is, that flash of something that makes them hold him even when he's sagging in their arms, pressing in too close and their hands almost too intimate. They're never like that with Pavel; and if Pavel was who they wanted originally he's not anymore, because it's Kirk they inject with a neon orange liquid. Kirk arches and screams, veins standing out in his neck and his face going red, his teeth too-white in contrast. But he doesn't talk (though they don't say anything, so what is this?), and they leave, disgusted. Pavel stays in the corner, watching Kirk curl up in the one opposite of him, panting and blinking tears out of his eyes, shaking. That goes on for four days, and the captain justwon't talk, even when Pavel realizes that it's a telepathic kind of drug- the reason their captors are so quiet is that they're telepaths- that diplomat was right, and they so should have brought Spock- , and they're trying to raze the captain's mind, but somehow he's not letting them. Pavel comes over into Kirk's corner on the tenth day of captivity and the fifth day of the dosings of orange mental hell, wrapping his arms around Kirk and his back, shushing him quietly in Russian because what difference will it make to Kirk? He's just trying to make sure that Kirk has something to listen to. Auditory stimulation to distract from the noise that has to be "Yeah, Sulu took it hard." Kirk gave him an indescribable look, then grinned. "Sleep easy, Chekov. Beta tomorrow." He sat uncomfortably next to Hikaru the next day on Beta shift, but the captain was blithely ignoring all the tension and contemplating just going into the Neutral Zone in a lazy tone of voice while Spock lifted his eyebrow. Six hours into the shift the captain had a whole course plotted, and Spock was starting to go stiff. The thing was, even only half-listening Pavel knew Kirk's plan had at least a 70% chance of being successful. "Do you think it's foreplay?" Hikaru asked, leaning over under the pretext of checking a reading. There was a moment where it could go weird- where Pavel could frown or flinch away or just not respond, but he grinned slightly and pretended to look at the warp drive readout and said, "They are weird. Is possible." "I don't even want to think about it." They all headed to the mess after the shift ended to eat, and Hikaru sat beside him, which wasn't unusual. What was unusual was the way his thigh pressed against Pavel's while he argued with Scotty and the captain. Over the next month there were more of these instances: extended contact, seemingly thoughtless kindness "They're so cute," the captain said when he thinks they're out of earshot. "Hey, why didn't we have a honeymoon period?" he demanded. "Where was the courting?" "We were too busy experiencing differences of opinion," Spock replied dryly. Hikaru flushed faintly at that. "Look," he said as they entered the turbolift, "they're just fucking around, because Kirk is a dick. A huge limp dick." And this was another moment. He could nod, agree, and steer the conversation to the fact that Winona Kirk was due to join the crew at the next stop. Or he could hit the stop, lean in, and see what Hikaru would do. So, his stomach was doing backflips, and this was such a stupid, stupid idea, and he was breathing a little quickly andHikaru leaned in and presses their lips together, and it was chaste, with Hikaru's hand coming up to cradle Pavel's jaw.

"Oh god," McCoy said when the turbolift door opens. "It's this ship. It's fucking infected with Happy Couple Syndrome." "That's not even a real- " Hikaru began, and McCoy's eyes narrowed and Pavel shoved Hikaru out and down the hall out of sheer self-preservation. He wanted to have sex again, maybe with Hikaru, and he was not into necrophilia. "So, this" Hikaru said slowly as they walked down the hall. "We'll see?" Pavel suggested. "Slow," Hikaru agreed, and then kissed him again, slow and sweet, and Pavel held his hips and It might be nice. Slow- it might, yes. Be nice. 9. When he wakes up he's by himself in the corner, and he begins to panic before he looks and realizes what he's seeing. Math like a song, perfectly etched into the white of the walls, and just across from him Kirk is scratching it in with his tags- old school, but McCoy insists because they act like a medical alert for anyone who can't scan Kirk. Who knew their captain was allergic to so much? He looks desperate and edgy, like the math's being pulled from him, but it'sperfect. Flawless. Pavel's relationship with math isn't like that- it'sjoyful. He does it because he can, because he's good at it, because it makes him happy and he doesn't know how to do any differentlybut Kirk does it because he has to- because he doesn't seem to have a choice.

The only problems, he realized, were that his English was hopelessly accented from having learned it from people with heavy accents, and that he took all their jokes about how Russia invented everything seriously. There were no historians in the lab- he just assumed that his motherland was the reason all the rest of them had come down from the trees (so to speak). Let's just say when he got to Starfleet Academy? He had a really bad semester where he almost failed history. All of it The relationship with Hikaru was kind of like that. It was like in four days he picked up all kinds of bad habits: expectations of zero consequences except maybe a VD, and when he got embarrassed with Hikaru, or they fought about something stupid itresonated. It was different, and scarier somehow than almost anonymous sex. It had to get fixed, and there were a lot of moments where he had to pretend that he had no shame and apologize for being a jerk even though he didn't want to. And it was worth it, because Hikaru's smiles were wide open like all of space, and he was patient until he realized Pavel was teasing him, and then he'd snap and roll them, devouring Pavel, all slick skin and curious fingers and a hungry mouth.

11. They spiral into more complicated numbers for hours, shifting slightly so Pavel can lean against the wall and drape Kirk over him, kind of. There are some explosions that rock the building and flicker the light that's present, Their captors come in, look around, and inject him again- the dose is higher, but doesn't seem to have a source. Kirk doesn't even notice. and Kirk snarls at them. Pavel sincerely hopes that those are the sounds of the rescue team, They leave him, and he's shaking like he's ready to shake apart, and Pavel because they've covered the entire cell in math and Kirk is becoming curls up beside him again and Kirk leans his head against Pavel's shoulder. withdrawn. Incapable of even snarling at their captors, and Pavel's had to drag him closer, because Kirk can't move his own limbs, and the shaking "102,941,459," he says. has reached the point where it's rattling Pavel's teeth. It's the first time he's spoken in thirteen days. Scotty is the first one in, because he's the best hacker they have, and where there was solid wall there's a panel that goes gaseous and lets him in. He "What?" Pavel asks. stares at them, curled together on the floor, and then says to Pavel, "Prime or not?" "Spock's comin'." "I- " Pavel hesitates, thinking. "Not prime." Which is just enough time for Pavel to panic and wonder what they look like. Kirk grins tiredly, and Pavel knows he is because of the way it shifts against his shoulder. "Your turn." "3,945,809,453." "Prime," Kirk rasps. "Be a little more challenging." Pavel looks at the top of his head incredulously, because what?. "Chekov." "Right. I'm thinking," Pavel says. 10. He was born when his mother died. Well, no- well, yes, but- He was born because his mother died. She blew herself up- freak accident in the lab, and they'd pulled him from her body. He grew up in the lab in Siberia, raised by his father and mother- not biological, but Katya was married to his father, Viktor, and Katya was sleeping with his mother, Anya, who was obviously sleeping with Viktor as well, and so by extension Katya was Pavel's mother. Pavel never learned to be normal, because he never was, and no one ever forced him to be. In the labs no one was, and he grew up with advanced theoretical theorems and a kind of iffy relationship with bathing, which was rectified as soon as he got to Starfleet. Then Kirk is turning his face towards Spock, hand reaching blindly out, and Pavel stares at it as it trembles, because Spock has barely even come into the room, and hasn't said anything yet. "They gave him- these- telepathic," Pavel stammers, because he'd thought he'd seen Spock angry before but this is this is incandescent Vulcan rage, here. It's in the line of his shoulders and the way his lips press together, in the way his whole body stills as he looks at Kirk for a long second before crouching beside them with that weirdly effortless grace he has. He puts his hand on Kirk's face, and Kirk's hand curls around Spock's neck, desperately seeking. "Don't move him," Spock tells Pavel, who nods because Spock's still furious, and Pavel will do anything not to get caught in the crossfire of that. Hikaru climbs in, blood smeared on his arm- not his, Pavel realizes after a moment of panic. He's looking at Spock, and then he looks at Pavel and shares a "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE" look, which actually makes him feel better as Hikaru visually checks him for damage. Kirk exhales, and Spock shifts and lifts him like he weighs nothing. "Can you stand?" Hikaru asks Pavel, and there's something familiar about the set of his jaw- it's the way he looked when they fired on the Narada. A reminder that Hikaru, who everyone thinks is a little bit off and funny and irreverent is actually a dangerous bastard, and Pavel has never been so glad to see him.

"I- oh, I think so," Pavel says, and then flinches. "My legs are asleep." Hikaru looks at him, and then sighs and picks him up with a grunt. "You owe me so hard for this."

"They drugged you," Pavel interrupts.

"You were freaked. A lot. I don't speak Russian but you were- and you didn't act it. Next time I end up drugged and telepathic and can't have Spock? Scotty bursts out laughing and tries desperately to hide it as both Spock and You're my man, Chekov." Hikaru cradle Kirk and Pavel respectively against their chests. "I'mso thrilled, Captain," Pavel manages, mind stuck on the "next time" like it's a certainty. Like the captain knows it's going to happen again. Uhura blinks at them all when they materialize in the transporter room. McCoy barks, "Put him down- I've got to give him antibiotics- what the hell?! Kirk grins wryly, like he knows what Pavel's thinking- and shit, maybe he CHAPEL!" does. "Anyway, Sulu's made another mark on that map of his, so. Also, he had to take over because Scotty was a littleoverenthusiastic. He's got "Oh my God- how can he be having a bad reaction to- no, okay, here." gamma off, so he'll be off when you're cleared, and I want to see you on the There are hypos being exchanged and Hikaru glances over and then looks bridge tomorrow." at him and says, "You don't want to even know." "Yes, sir," Pavel agrees "What are they doing?" he asks as Hikaru takes his hand and strokes his Doctor McCoy checks a read out, frowning in concentration. Pavel looks at thumb along it. him, frowning, and says, "Why did- " "He's having a really awful reaction to the drugs and Spock's pretty much "Let Jim up? Yeah, you try keeping him in bed. Most of it Spock could clear completely mind-melded to him andyep, now Spock is doubling over in up, then it was just detox. He should be sleeping, but he won't, so. I'm pain." letting Spock wear him down." He says it with a certain amount of glee, but "Oh, that's just great. This entire solar system is going to be blown out of Pavel's onto McCoy. He's gruff and angry because he cares so much he existence- Scotty will kill them all," he mutters as the sedative takes hold. has to be. "I don't know what you're saying," Hikaru informs him, and then kisses the McCoy is an asshole because he'd fall apart if he wasn't. Pavel gets that. hand he's holding. It's nice- quietly there, and present, even if Chekov's 14. sliding away, Hikaru's like an anchor. The captain falls asleep on Gamma shift 48 hours after he walked out of 12. med bay, and Uhura gets up and touches Spock's shoulder before paging He doesn't remember much of the Narada incident. McCoy. That's a lie. "Bring him down, Spock," McCoy says in a resigned, if not satisfied, voice. He does. He remembers losing Spock's mother, and the awful still way Spock stood, like the sheer intensity of his disbelief could bring her to the Enterprise. He remembers the way Hikaru's jaw had shifted when Pavel had said, "Narada in position." "Right. Mr. Scott- " "Aye. We're ready." "Standby phasers at full force," Sulu said, and then they'd been firing, knowing that Kirk and Spock and Pike were still there, not knowing ifHe remembers the carnage of both Starfleet's best cadets and of the Vulcans and the Romulans on board the Narada. He grieves for their entire leave. He knows this makes him unusual- at least among the bridge crew, because Scotty's arms-deep in the Enterprise and Uhura runs around after the captain and McCoy and the captain are recruiting and Sometimes Pavel thinks that they must have experienced it differently. He has screaming nightmares about it. They're the worst when he's sedated. 13. When he wakes up Kirk is sitting beside his bed. "Did I sleep too late?" he asks, because Kirk shouldn't be awake before him- Kirk was far worse off than he was. "Yeah, I didn't catch a word of that. I didn't take Russian," the captain says. "But I'm guessing by the guilty look you're worried about oversleeping. Don't." He frowns, concentrates and says, in English this time, "Then?" "I wanted to- thank you. I know I wasn't great company down there and you" Hikaru, Uhura, and Pavel come down to see him when the shift is over. Spock is supervising the running of the shift- none of them expect him to come down because that's notnot who they are. "I'm gonna go to bed, you coming?" Hikaru asks after a while. "No. I'm going to stay up," Pavel says, watching. "Just a bit longer." "I'll see you when you get in, then." Hikaru squeezes his shoulder and goes into the turbolift with Uhura. Eventually Pavel becomes aware of the fact there's someone else there- the stillness says it's Spock. "He's better than I am," Pavel says quietly as they look in through the med bay doors- the captain quiet and pale and McCoy is sitting beside him with hypos at the ready. On the tablet Kirk is doing math- Pavel doesn't have to see the numbers to recognize the expression. "It's different," Spock disagrees, and there's- Pavel's always been the best at what he does, he can do what other people can't do and he's been able to do it sinceas long as he can remember. And he's not it's just kind of strange, to not be the best. But, looking at the way McCoy is supervising the captain's scribbling and then muttering something about their apartment being covered, Pavel doesn'twant to be. And he doesn't think the captain does either, as he lets McCoy pull the tablet from his fingers and administer another hypo. Kirk doesn't even complain, just wearily accepts it like he's disappointed in his brain; in his body- like they've somehow failed him. "What happened to the people of the planet?" Pavel asks. "We've sent diplomatic teams," Spock says. "Vulcans, primarily." "The facility?" "Razed. Mr. Scott exceeded his instructions, most of the city was lost." The warm curl of vicious satisfaction is wrong, he knows- they were intruders on Br'x, beings with whom the Br'x couldn't communicate, and armed. And Starfleet sent them in blind.

Pavel's not sure who he's mad at, but he's pissed off. "Goodnight, Commander," he says quietly. "Hey," Hikaru says when he comes in. He looks at Pavel and then scoots over, and Pavel fits neatly in that space under Hikaru's arm. "I don't want to talk about it," he says. "Okay."

This is the view looking in on the Enterprise. Work Text: Cook You might think that Kirk would be the one who would relish food, but he's not. Kirk's relationship with food is skittish and reluctant- he is the proverbial horse who can be led to water but cannot be forced to drink. He eats what he knows, and he's entirely predictable.

He just wants to be held, and go to sleep, and wake up tomorrow and do the A meal substituting bar in the morning, accompanied by at least five cups of job. coffee; he generally skips the mid-shift meal, but can be seen snacking idly, and so the KP staff make sure to leave snacking foods out in easily-hid And have it be at least a month before this happens again. Because it will. packages for the bridge crew to secret away and bring out when necessary. 15. The end-of-shift meal varies, as well. There is this problem that they have. Sometimes they all tumble into the cafeteria, and one of them, usually Sulu Kirk is a freak of nature, and on really, really boring trips (which this has turned out to be) he rigs up the viewing screen to watch Firefly and Serenity. or Chekov, will come up and pile two trays high and they'll all eat from the same tray, which means Kirk can't avoid eating at all. And, once they're all done sobbing over Wash- because what was THAT?!If it's rough, KP will bring protein-rich bars and fruits- easily eaten and Hikaru looks at Kirk and says, slowly, ignored. "Soyou do know that we'renot fighting an evil empire. And that" he And on the times after it goes very wrong, or the days where it's very boring, trails off, and Pavel watches as Kirk's grin goes roguish. Mr. Spock will come in. He will meticulously select a wide variety of "I think I'd do well in suspenders. Kinda cunnin', doncha think?" vegetarian foods, and take the tray to a recreation room where he and the captain will play three dimensional chess and the captain can be coerced Pavel cracks up. into eating a good meal without the threat of Doctor McCoy giving him hypo And then it disintegrates into: "Who are you?!" supplements. Scotty is clearly Kaylee, Kirk is Mal, obviously, Uhura is Zo, McCoy, they It's nice, that the captain and the first officer get along so well; that the decide kind of reluctantly, is probably Simon. captain is taken care of by his crew. Kirk insists Cupcake (they have got to learn his real name) is Jayne, and Hikaru is Wash. Spock winds up being River, which he lifts an epic eyebrow to and Kirk can't stop laughing about. "What about me?" Pavel asks. "Inara," Uhura deadpans, just as Hikaru says: "Book." He glares at them all, trying hard not to laugh, but the thing is- the thing is that it's been four years. Four years in the black of space going where no one has gone before, and they're still them, watching stupid old shows because their captain is a lunatic and betting on whether or not they're going to die and panicking because one or more people have gone missing, and having funerals because so many people die. It's been four years, and after this last year it will be another five, and maybe five after that- as long as they keep giving Jim Kirk the captaincy of the Enterprise Pavel will come back to it. It'sreassuring. Especially given how often this ship gets into trouble. Ambassador She's assigned to mediate the conflict between the Landreaux and the Teagas. The Enterprise is the only ship the warring populations will allow in their airspace, and so she just had to take seven connectors just to get into beaming range. Which is complete nonsense, because everyone knows Montgomery Scott has modified the Enterprise beyond recognition in completely illegal ways. Which she would, of course, have been responsible for reporting, but still. The crew functions effortlessly, and yet there is too much fraternization. The captain is too close to his crew- the crew members are too informal with each other.

It should probably beworrying. That they joke when there are rescues now The crew is young, a large proportion of them are Vulcan, and although because they've become used to the little rescues- it's the ones where Kirk positions are dictated there seems to be quite a bit of mixing between departments. goes missing and tortured that everyone goes dead silent and dangerous. Everyone knows that Commander Spock played no small role in getting Jim It's not normal, but they're none of them really normal. It's probably not Kirk to join Starfleet; she expects he is truly the captain here. normal that they've paired off neatly, either, but they've done that, too. But he can't imagine getting off shift and turning to someone and trying to explain his day- not to be able to talk a problem through or shake uncontrollably because it was too close this time. There's a reason the bridge crew has paired off like it has- a reason McCoy and Chapel are together, a reason Uhura is with Scotty. They're Big Damn Heroes, and no power in the 'verse can stop them. What We Have Seen waldorph Summary: He doesn't seem to be. Kirk looks to him first when they encounter something odd- but that is easily explained as Spock, as chief science officer, is most likely to have an answer. He watches her, though. They all do. The whole crew seems to think she's a Starfleet spy; resentful of her presence, and yet there is no effort to mask their behavior- no one is saluting more crisply, there is no feigned or strained adherence to policy.

When they get to Lauesaow'ik Captain Kirk looks at Uhura, who longsufferingly supplies the name of the planet for him and which he makes no effort at repeating. "Have fun," he says. "And if they get antsy, tell them to talk to the Golth. Or the Alokians." He grins reflectively and Lieutenant Uhura bites her lips on a smile. "Now those people know how to have a civil war." They smooth over the conflict, and when the Enterprise is unavailable to collect them? She's not too broken up about it.

He is unattached, she knows- and there are many who would like to welcome the new year with copulation. Not she; she is happily married, and Yao'siis would kill her if she strayed. She gently pushes young women and young men towards him who are of a mind to know the strangers more intimately. He is charming, and turns all of them down. It is most curious. She wishes to do something for him; to cement the friendship, but perhaps it is the wrong idea: perhaps he is attached.

Security Officer His Spock never leaves his side. He does not dance, and when Captain It's his first week as security officer and the captain is yanked right out of the James Kirk participates in said frivolities, Spock watches with dark eyes. captain's chair. She rearranges the rooms- she moves them from their crew to her own No one knows where he is: Uhura can't get a signal, Spock can barely find home as a sign of how she honors them. any energy fluctuations, and Scott has no idea how they pierced the Their rooms are adjoining, and there is a courtyard. Enterprise's shields. She sees them, outlined in moonlight, and thinks that she does not know There are seventeen very tense hours as Chekov is roused from his bed (and what is he, twelve?), Sulu following and rubbing his eyes before sitting how this Federation they speak of will help or harm her people, but that if it at the helm, both of them watching Spock, who has sat in the captain's chair has such officers within it it cannot be bad. with a terrifying grimness. If it has such people, so dedicated to their Federation that they maintain a faade of platonic friendliness when in truth they are closer than that, Uhura finds the faintest subspace whisper which Chekov apparently can must mean its cause is just, and worth believing in. triangulate a location from, and Scott gets them to the planet and then McCoy, Spock, Uhura, he and a few of the other officers beam down. Captain James Kirk tilts his head up with a smile, and Spock moves to taste The captain is bleeding out steadily- there is no way he survives this, and it it, and she turns to give them their privacy. sucks, because this ship won't be the same when he's gone. "How are the strangers?" Yao'siis inquires from their bed. Except that McCoy is working frenetically and Uhura is speaking to Scott, "Our friends," she says, smiling as she slips her robe off, "are most well." and Spock has walked through the door and pressed his hand to it. The Ambassador's Wife "It is an artificial intelligence," he reports, and what, now Vulcans can meld waldorph with walls? "It was looking for its leader." "That's new," Sulu remarks mildly- they are all remarkably sanguine about this whole thing. "Right, Scotty, beam us the hell up," McCoy barks, and then they're back on the Enterprise andAnd it's nothing. The captain spends the night in the medical bay, shift change occurs on time, and Sulu says something about marking "one more planet that hates Kirk. Wait, I need to start differentiating between "animate" and "inanimate"though to be fairartificial intelligence might cover it better." Chekov makes an amused noise and wipes blood off of Sulu's neck. This ship? Is fucking deranged. Idrot They come in peace, they are explorers. The Idrot welcome them, and Yav'iit is most glad to have them among her people: it bodes well that they start their new year with new friends. She insists on no speaking of trade agreements or their Federation- though she is intrigued by it, and would know more of it when the week is out. This is their week of celebration and renewal, and their new friends seem greatly in need of such: their faces are worn and their posture is ever-alert. But there will be no surprises here, and their people mingle freely with hers. She is glad of it, and on the third day she turns to tell Captain James Kirk this, only to find that he is watching the dancing with a smile which renders him startlingly attractive. Summary: If Amanda had to pick one word to describe Sarek, it would be "genuine." Notes: (See the end of the work for notes) Work Text: Amanda met Margaret Kapoor when she went to Stanford. They roomed together in an apartment off both of their campuses: Margaret was in the medical program, and Amanda was in the education program. Amanda had been shell-shocked by the amount of persistent, unyieldingly cheerful sunshine in the way that only a native of Seattle could be, and Maggie had laughed at her as only a resident of New Delhi could.

They'd gone to school together as the young 16 year old girls in both of their programs, gone on to achieve doctorates and distinctions, and Amanda could never quite shake her. She's regretting it now, as she sits, unpacked at the Earth Embassy on Vulcan, curled in a window seat and reading while looking out on Vulcan's barren, quiet landscape. Even the planet, she reflects, turning a page, has a certain gravitas. "Amanda! Amanda!" Maggie shrieks as she tumbles into the room. Amanda sighs. "Could you at least pretend to be a merit scholar and not twelve?" she asks plaintively, wondering how many times she's asked the same thing and been thoroughly disappointed. Amanda, however, is an eternal optimist. "I was never allowed to be twelve when I was twelve, I'm making up for it now," Maggie says virtuously. "Do you know that all doctors say that?" Amanda asks, sitting on the bed.

"I never had a wild youth, I was too busy studying." "Yes, well, neither did I." "It doesn't count, you were never going to be anything but perfectly reasonable and atrociously maternal." "That's very kind," Amanda says very dryly. "You know what I mean. And I'm only saying, I didn't think Vulcans were supposed to be hot." "Vulcan internal temperature is a fair ten or fifteen degrees higher than- " "That's not what I meant, and you know it." Amanda puts down the book she's trying, and, apparently, doomed to fail at reading. "Margaret." "Don't look at me like that. I've been stuck in conferences all day and now our esteemed hosts are throwing a party." Amanda tilts her head. "And what would a Vulcan party look like, do you suppose?" "I don't know, which is why you have to come. It's your duty as a scholar." "I'm have a doctorate in education and a masters in history, Maggie, hardly a scholar." "Lies," Maggie denounces cheerfully, grabbing her hand. "I think you'd look good in grey, don't you? You can borrow mine so you don't look like a great Puritan prude." "That's charming, Margaret, thank you." The book lays forgotten on the windowsill. "Why are they having a party of any kind?" "To acknowledge the varying cultures and to provide a highly logical avenue in which to socialize," Maggie says. "Or so I'd imagine. Not being Vulcan makes it a bit hard to say."

rejection, not really, and she laughs a little as she slips away to find Maggie, whose dark skin is flushed high with color as her black eyes snap with amusement. "What were you talking about with the Ambassador?" she asks over the sound of the music, pulling her way a bit and snagging a flute of white wine as she passes it. "The merits of dance." "He's watching you," Maggie says, glancing over under her lashes. "And he? Is a hot Vulcan." "I don't know why he would," she replies, shaking her head, touching her bun idly. "You said there were doctors from Earth Outpost II?" "Lonely doctors who are light on their feet and eager to dance." "No one talks like that, Maggie." "I'm feeling very Austen, tonight." "Maggie, if you cast a Vulcan as Darcy- " "Don't lie, then you can be Elizabeth. Oh, Miss Bennet!" she dissolves into laughter, and Amanda turns her face into her hand and laughs helplessly, because Maggie is absurd, and this whole conference is about being on one's best behavior, but maybe for this one night of indulgent gaiety they can be all right. "Doctor Grayson? I have a message for you." A Vulcan hands her a piece of paper, and she unfolds it, Maggie peering over her shoulder. Amanda- parents in hospital, don't worry, call when you get this. "Where is the nearest comm?" she asks, feeling as though all the music in the room has been shut off and she is standing on a precipice, about to tumble into a black hole. "I will show you," Ambassador Sarek says, putting a hand on her elbow and guiding her into a hall, down into a study that seems very subdued. "Yes, this is Amanda Grayson, I got a message from the hospital- well, a neighbor, um, Xin Li. My parents- I'm off-world, I'm on Vulcan- "

The open reception hall is full of people- academics- in glittering finery. Maggie is already laughing at a few people who have been poured into their outfits, but she goes after whomever looks to be a good-time with singleminded determination. Amanda speaks with Dean Mi'si, of Xkuk University, before he turns to a man walking by and says, "Ah, Ambassador Sarek, this is Doctor Amanda Grayson, my esteemed colleague." "Doctor Grayson," he says. "Ambassador." It's interesting, she thinks, that they don't say "nice to meet you" or "a pleasure to make your acquaintance." It's refreshing, actually. Mi'si toddles off to go pursue new conversation, and she shakes her head after him, standing next to the ambassador for a moment as the dancing commences. She can see Vulcans dancing, which surprises her, and prompts her to ask; "Would you like to dance?" "I do not dance," he replies gravely. "Do not or will not?" She can't help the smile, because he says it so heavily, even for the Vulcans in her acquaintance. "I do not know the dance." "I can teach you." "No, that will not be necessary."

"Ms. Grayson, this is Doctor Emmanuel at Boston General. Your parents have been in an accident. The shuttle they were in to get back from Paris to Seattle crashed. Your father is in stable condition in the ICU, but your mother is undergoing surgery again. Is there any way you can get back?" "I- it'll take me at least six days to get there," she says, sitting in the surprisingly comfortable chair. "Then I suggest you board it now. We'll keep in touch, but as you know communication at warp speed can be suspect if you are not Starfleet." "I understand, thank you." The communication beeps its disconnection, and she inhales shakily, exhales hard, and runs her fingers over her lips as she stares into middle distance. "I offer my own cruiser," Ambassador Sarek says, startling her into remembering his presence, which she immediately feels guilty for. "It can be ready in thirty minutes. At warp 8 we will be at Earth in 136.976 hours." She looks at him blankly. "I majored in history and education and minored in literature." "5.7 days, approximately." "I- thank you." "It will be no trouble."

It is fifteen-crew cruiser, and later she will be impressed by that when she "Dancing is never necessary, Ambassador. Merely a frivolity," she says, and isn't sitting on one of the beds in the too-warm cabin, trying not to "what if" them to death. smiles because the music is happy and swelling and people are laughing brightly and there is so much joy to be had that- that it hardly seems a

Five days pass in which she attempts, very arduously, not to think about it. She reads constantly, eats when she thinks to, and sleeps. She sleeps the most, because every time she opens her eyes they are that much closer to Earth. That much closer to her parents. "I'm coming," she whispers. "Hold on, I'm coming." An eternity later, Sarek (she's not sure when she's dropped "Ambassador", but she has, and honestly, the man is taking her in his own private cruiser to see her parents and essentially ditching a state function- there is no need to stand on ceremony in her mind) knocks lightly, and informs her that they have arrived in San Francisco and he has commissioned a shuttle to take them to Boston.

spent her entire stay in a medically-induced coma. We suspect that she was not in any pain, having lost consciousness at the initial blow." Dr. Emmanuel folds her hands together and presses them to her desk. "Your father, however, only died within the last twenty-four hours. He died of heart-failure; it is my opinion that the stress of the crash compounded with his high bloodpressure and the surgeries were simply too much, and his heart gave out." "Was he in a lot of pain?" That seems important, somehow. "I'm afraid so. Both physically and emotionally- he knew of your mother's passing, and so- " "Death." "I'm sorry?"

"Passing, she didn't pass anything, you pass a kidney stone. She died. He takes her elbow to guide her down the steps, and she is grateful, Please use the correct wording." because at some point in the past week she's gone from being competent to "Very well. He knew shedied, and took it as hard as you might expect. If being a nervous wreck. there is no will to live, patients often don't make it, despite our best efforts." The two and a half hours it takes them to get to Boston are the longest of The muscles in her neck and back are tight, and her vision has gone blurry, her life, and she's fairly close she's hyperventilating as they walk through her nose full and stinging as she presses her fingers, and then the backs of reception, and are directed towards the surgical/intensive care wing. them, and then the fronts again to her mouth, nipping at the pads to try to Sarek takes measured steps, and she matches hers to them, and breathes in and out every time she puts her left foot forward- a trick she used when she was going to exams to calm down. She stops at the receptionist's desk- a heavy forty-something year-old woman with a heavy brow and the look of someone terminally bored and unimpressed with the world in general. Amanda supposes that must be some sort of job requirement for receptionists, regardless of culture or planet. "Amanda Grayson, I'm here to see my parents- Trevor and Jenna Grayson? Doctor Emmanuel is expecting me, since it is my shuttle just got in I've been on Vulcan and then had to take the shuttle from San Francisco and- " "Okay Grayson, Grayson." regulate her breathing, which has become impossible to bear. "Would you like a cup of water?" "No. No. Thank you, I'm sorry. I'm fine. Um.. Are their bodies here or- " "They've been sent to the funeral home specified in their wills in Seattle, Washington," Dr. Emmanuel says gently. "The curator there is waiting for your instruction." "Thank you, Dr. Emmanuel," she says, smiling a little and wiping her eyes, cheeks, and neck. "I'm so sorry for your loss." She nods, and steps out of the office.

Sarek stands from his seat on the bench in the hallway, dark eyes Amanda taps on the top of the counter as the nurse scans her files, chewing impassive, but she thinks- there is concern in the shape of his eyes; the the inside of her lip. tightness around them. "I'm sorry, do you have any form of picture identification on you?" the nurse- "My parents are dead," she says, and her mouth twists, and she stays quiet Madison Greenley- asks. until she can speak again without sobbing. "I have to go back to Seattleplease extend my apologies for my hasty departure from the conference, "I- no. I came from a conference on Vulcan- those are my parents- " And but I need to organize a funeral and and go through all of their things, now, now, she's crying, and she wipes them away furiously, mad at this and" stupid, stupid woman for keeping her from her parents and"I am Ambassador Sarek, of the Vulcan Embassy. My information should be "I understand. I will take you to Seattle, and then I must return to San Francisco." in your files and easily verified," he says, and she didn't realize he was there- why is he here? "I will vouch for Ms. Grayson, as it is partially my fault that her information is on Vulcan, as it is my shuttle which she has taken here." He comes to the funeral, which is, naturally, on a rainy day, because Seattle The nurse frowns, but apparently there's some ambassador-secret-code is always blanketed in rain. because she gives him an exasperated look, but nods. She is standing there, surrounded by her parents' colleagues and some "Thank you," Amanda whispers, putting her hand on his arm and squeezing. friends. Maggie couldn't make it- even if they pushed warp 9 she wouldn't "Thank you, Sarek." have been back in time, and so when Amanda comes out of the funeral "Ms. Grayson, won't you come this way?" Dr. Emmanuel looks too grim for it home and into the cemetery and sees a tall figure quietly standing among the trees. to be good news, and a small sob wrenches from her throat before she nods, letting her hand fall from his arm as she walks towards Dr. Emmanuel There is something very reassuring about his presence. in her stupid high heels. He's not there, she knows, to pay false respects or because he's standing "Please, have a seat." on some strange concept of propriety. She does, clutching the arms. Genuine. The word she wants to describe his presence is genuine. "Your mother died within the first forty-eight hours she was in our care. When the shuttle overloaded, she was directly in the line of damage and, unfortunately, what with the retrieval and the journey here I'm afraid she And so she stands beside him as the coffins are lowered into the ground, and tries very hard not to fly apart at the seams.

"So, what did you think?" she asks, sitting in her parents apartment and sorting through their books. He is standing by the window, watching the rain fall. "Of what?" "Earth mourning customs. That is your role, to understand Earth better as Vulcan's ambassador, isn't it?" "I suppose that is true."

"No," he says simply, and shifts just enough so she is under his arm, pressed against his side; protective. She has the silly thought that if she stays here, just like this, the world can't get in, and she'll be fine. She leans up and kisses him, just a brief press of lips, before curling back down against his side, and closing her eyes. When she wakes up, she's alone in the quiet apartment, and Sarek is gone.

She looks around, exhales, and puts in a call to her Dean- she needs a sabbatical. Maybe Maggie's right; maybe they've been going since they "What did you think?" were young and they never had time to learn how to pick themselves up "I confess to not understanding the grief displayed: it appeared to be directly when they fell. inversely proportionate to the degree to which the individual was known to Well. She thinks her parents dying is an adequate excuse. the deceased." She laughs, then- it's surprised out of her, and once she begins she can't stop, hunching over. "I'm sorry. Go on, I'm curious." "Is this part of the grieving process?" She blinks, wiping her eyes. "I suppose. I am trying to think of other things. This house- I grew up here. Learned to read with these books, ate at that tableyou're a welcome distraction, and whether you know it or not, by agreeing to come back here you also agreed to be that distraction." "I see." She smiles, faintly, then, because he doesn't, not really. "I think people who don't feel grief as keenly because they don't know the deceased as well feel the need to express it lest they be found wanting," she says. "Everyone knew I was grieving- but I also am hostess of the event, and so I wasn't allowed to cry. I didn't have to prove how sad I was, but others might have to validate their presence there." "Thank you for explaining." "I could hire someone to do this," she says flatly, scrubbing her face. "I could tell the landlord to just chuck it all." "'Chuck it'?" he repeats, and it's hilarious, really, to hear him say it like that. "Throw it away." "Fascinating: you state that you have an emotional attachment to the items within the apartment and yet you appear relieved at the prospect of purging it all." "I- yes." "Thus purging your emotions." "Thus ending the immediate pain," she corrects, frowning just a little as she thinks it over. "Yes. Purging the painful emotions." He sits on the couch, straight-backed and lacing his fingers, watching her with intent eyes, and she moves from the floor with a wince to sit beside him. "Thank you for coming, today. For everything. You didn't have to, and I- I'm grateful." She puts her hand on his arm again, and he looks down at it, at her small pale hand on the neutral layers of his jacket sleeve. Vulcans wear so many clothes, she thinks distractedly. "You are welcome," he says, and she smiles slightly because she thinks that it's a Terranism he's trying out. It's very quiet in the apartment: too quiet. Mom always had music on, and Dad would flip on a holovid and they'd argue and laugh and just talk, all the time, about everything. Even the rain sounds muted on the window, and she leans her head against his shoulder, suddenly tired. "Is it illogical to grieve?" she asks, sounding small even to her own ears. She's 25, not a child, and yet she feels like an orphan.

Being on sabbatical apparently means she gets to attend fundraisers and awards- which is joy unparalleled for an academic. Except for how it's not. So now she's here, at a stupid award that she's not even up for, sipping orange juice and attempting to avoid handsy senators. "Don't look," Maggie says abruptly, and so of course Amanda looks. Sarek is standing across the park, and Amanda flushes slightly. "What exactly happened?" Maggie demands, grabbing her arm and pulling her aside, putting down her champagne flute. "I mean, obviously you were distressed, but I ask for you and they tell me Ambassador Sarek has whisked you away in his private cruiser, and then I hear from Dr. Andrews in the Lit department that he was at the funeral, and now you can't even look him in the eye and you're blushing? Amanda, tell me this is not a resurgence of the white knight fetish." "I don't have a white knight fetish," Amanda protests, and goes even redder, and damns Maggie to hell. "Oh my god, you want to fuck him?" Maggie almost shrieks, and Amanda slams her hand over her mouth- it's too late, people are already looking at them. That is because of the rule that anyone who shrieks "fuck" or a variation thereof in a crowded place automatically gives up any illusion of privacy for themselves and whomever is associated with them. No really, it's in the urban dictionary. "Come here!" she snaps, hauling her into an empty room in the governor's mansion. "No, obviously, because Vulcan sex has to be very boring- " "You've thought about it to the degree that you know it would be boring," Maggie points out, gleeful. "Plus, you're the one who volunteered that whole "white knight" thing, and yes, Amanda, you have a thing for the white knights." "I do not!" "Brian?" "I- " "Sendhil?" "He was not- " "Adam?" Amanda frownsit's possible she's right. "White knights don't really exist, as evidenced by the list," she points out. "I've learned my lesson. Besides, he's Vulcan, here to study and observe us." "Kinky." "I hate you so much." "You kissed him, didn't you?"

"It was a heat-of-thepost-funereal moment." "Oh, Mandy." "Don't call me that." "You want Vulcan sex. What if it's amazing?" "Oh god, shut up." "What if it's huge?" Maggie takes a moment to be staggered by the possibilities of that, wetting her lips unconsciously. Slut.

When he kisses her, and he does- he kisses her this time- she tilts her head up to receive it, her pulse racing so loudly it seems impossible that he can't hear it. His lips are hot, and his hand big as it cups her neck under her ear, thumb resting on her cheek and his fingers in the hair at the nape of her neck. It is, she realizes dazedly, a kiss borne of observation, but not experience. She wonders how Vulcans kiss, if not like this: if they kiss at all. So she tilts his jaw slightly, adjusting their angle and sliding her tongue over his lips, darting inside when he opens for her, tasting the shocking heat of him.

"I cannot believe you won't shut up!" Amanda laughs, dragging her back out He is a very quick learner, and when he pulls back she makes as if to follow, to the reception. There are many, many very attractive young men there heat curled at the base of her spine and at the pit of her stomach and she (which Maggie is supportive and points out cheerfully, even pulling introductions), and all she can do is watch Sarek as he talks gravely with the wants- she wants. governor of California. At nine she decides it's pathetic, and goes out into the governor's mansion's gardens, immaculately groomed shrubbery and flowers- Maggie's found a senator and is making very bad life choices, and Amanda is determined not to care. "Hello." She jumps, turning to look at him. "Sarek- I mean, Ambassador." "I do not think it necessary to stand upon ceremony," he says. "Amanda." "Did you enjoy your conversation?" And yes, this is the inane part of the conversation, and in about an hour she's going to kick herself. Or five minutes. Whichever. "I found it informative." "Your conversation withGovernor Keyes?" she says dubiously, raising her eyebrows at him and pulling her hair over her shoulder. "From a cultural observer's point of view," he clarifies, and she laughs, because yes, that. The Vulcan embassy is very spare, which she will appreciate at a later date, when her brain isn't chirping, and how big is the bed? and what if it's terrible? And, as she's stretched out on the bed with his mouth on hers, his layers of clothes discarded over a lounging couch, his body hot over hers, he's almost painfully experimental: his hands trailing over her body and pausing to make note of what makes her breath hitch; watches her face carefully as though to determine if the gasp is in pleasure or in discomfort until she can't bear it, wet to the point of being slick between her thighs, which she spreads, hands cupping his shoulders as she begs, "Sarek. Sarek, please." And then he's sliding in, still watching her face, just quiet, barely out of breath, but he's hard and hot and here, and she doesn't need him to whine under her fingers to know that he wants her.

"He's silent." "He's a moron," she says. "Californians elect morons, but then I suppose we "I don't know why I'm telling you this." all elect morons, because they're the only ones stupid enough to run. Of course, this might be why I am not a political scientist." "During sex." "It is jaded," he concedes. "I take it back." "It's a national past-time, to be jaded about politics. It's how we know the system's working." "It seems illogical and inefficient." "It is." "Your tone suggests satisfaction at odds with what you have just told me." "That," she says brightly, linking her arm with his and walking down the path, "is because we as a species have always delighted in being contradictory." "Fascinating." They stumble upon an amorous couple, and she flushes and hastily changes direction, and wonders what you say in the wake of that other than "his knees are going to be so sore tomorrow." Sarek bites the bullet, which surprises her. "This penchant for exhibitionism, is that universal or specific to individuals?" She stops and stares at him, trying to formulate an appropriate response to that. "I'm very concerned by what that question implies." He looks at her, and she suddenly feels very bare in her little black dress, remembering the women of Vulcan in their corseted gowns and elegant veils. "Isn't it creepy?" "No. No, it'snot creepy." "Amanda, I love you, you know I love you, but how is this going to end? He's not going to marry you, you're just I mean, maybe he's enjoying this and everything but he's also here to observe and who was the last Vulcan who married a human? And you want kids, andand you hate parties, and being the Ambassador's wife is it has a lot to do with being very politically correct. And you sort of suck at that." Amanda curls around the comm, surrounded by pillows in Sarek's bed, and here, in the bright light of morning- what is she expecting? What is shedoing? "And he's Vulcan, and what, you're going to have a very logical relationship with adequate indicators of affection such as he can give based upon observed behavioral patterns?" Maggie continues, voice gentle and horrible at the same time. "Amanda, you want a family, and a man who will tell you that he loves you- you cry every time Darcy tells Elizabeth he loves her. Every Darcy, every time." And that's true. "I just don't want to see you hurt, love. Are you still there?" "Yeah. I'm here. I just I think I want to be reckless, right now."

"Okay, well. I'll be here with hugs and strong liquor when it ends, okay?" Maggie sighs. "And now I have to strategically exit a senator's house without her husband seeing me. Wish me luck!" Maggie, Amanda reflects, has a serious mental problem that someone should diagnose. And she's shrinking in, thinking about how foolish last night really was- how silly she's being sitting in his bed in her underwear likelike she's any right to be here. "I have brought breakfast. I did not know what you liked, and so the cook made a guess, and included traditional Earth breakfast items, with the caveat of vegetarianism," he says, bringing with him a tray, and she stares at him, and his eyes slide from her face to the comm in her hand, and she can almost see him brace himself, so she puts it down on the bedside table, twists her hair into a rope to throw behind her shoulders, and says; "Good. I was hungry." She scoots over, and twitches down the covers, and then looks at him expectantly after he places the tray in her lap. And when he sits, fully dressed in his suit, she smiles, then laughs, nudging him contentedly and drinking what appears to be fresh-squeezed orange juice. "What are you doing today?" she asks around a slice of toast, and he tells her about the meetings he'll go to, and by the time he is very, very late for a meeting and she's wiping strawberry jam from the corner of his mouth and laughing, she's forgotten all about Maggie's call. For five months she has Sarek to herself, wrapped in the cocoon of the Embassy and his indulgences, letting her take him around San Francisco or to old bookshops in Seattle or to the museums in Paris not to see them as he has been- as a Vulcan Ambassador for whom governors shut down cities and museums open for exclusively, but as Terrans experience it. They're a people of small pleasures really, and she almost (almost) thinks he's getting it. Of course, then she tends to go on and on about history, the rise and fall of Earth civilizations and silly little facts that nobody remembers but her, because she likes the parts of history that are intimate, connected to the people and not belonging to the ages. But he sits and listens over Afghani food in Seattle while she talks how Afghanistan was finally subdued by imminent threat from Pakistan and a man who ruled with a paternal smile and the wife who slit throats from behind her hijab. They had been terrible and amazing and no one had known quite what to do with them: the world had decided to sit back, the Americans quietly withdrawing while the world politely pretended it hadn't been a failure- and it's not remembered as a failure, but only because Maiwand Teyrawah and his wife, Fahim, filled the vacuum. And they had been amazing because they'd managed to turn the nation into a constitutional monarchy that endured until the creation of the United Arab Federation of today. She's growing accustomed to the dry heat of the embassy- of the luxury of sabbatical. Maggie looks at her like Amanda's setting herself up for a fall, but she can't bring herself to care, not really. Then, after a night of hand kissing (which is hotter than you'd think) and lip kisses, he draws back and says, very seriously, "Please marry me." And she laughs and kisses him and says yes, because what else was she going to say? And then? Then it gets intense.

She is twenty-six, Terran, and coming into this whole thing from the wrong angle. Mainly, that she isn't Vulcan. And so she dresses a little more conservatively, wraps a veil into her hair and wears long sleeves. She's always worn skirts, so that sacrifice is hardly a sacrifice. Sarek's staff handle the announcement of their marriage, and she's given lists of topics she cannot pass comment on- whom she can see, whom she can speak to, and the duration for all of them. Her wardrobe is adjusted, and will over time become more Vulcan. No one mentions the fact that she is tiny, but the amount of hemming that gets done is a good indicator. The day she finds out that he's 65, older than her father, is a day she has to sit down and call Maggie. "I need a day where I am not being instructed on the appropriate degree to which it is appropriate to smile," she says. "All right, good. We'll go to the park." Maggie takes one look at her and sits down, clutching her chest on the park bench. "You look- " "Maggie- " "You look like Lady Amanda. Oh my god, should I bow?" "Shut up, Maggie," she warns. "No, you look- you're really marrying him?" She pulls herself up and pats the space next to her, smiling broadly. "He's sixty-five, Maggie," she blurts, because it seems huge. It feels huge, even though it's not going to make her call the wedding off. "Oh my god, we should have gone to the bar," Maggie says flatly. "I'm not allowed to go to bars." "You never went to bars when you were allowed. Still, that'swow." "I know!" "He does not look sixty-five." "Maggie!" "Well, Vulcans live to be over two hundred, so really, in human years that's he's what, had a third of his life, right? So think of him as thirtythree. Which is actually about how old he looks, and that's only what, only eight years older than you?" "Seven." "Much more manageable." She exhales. "I don't think I can do this." "What are you talking about?" "I'm feeling a little overwhelmed, and he's in Hong Kong." "Sweetheart, you are marrying a Vulcan. It's causing an interplanetary stir, which is probably making Vulcans crazy. You're like royalty, now, and you're marrying the Vulcan on Earth," Maggie says almost apologetically, patting her hand. "Of course, you can't stop smiling, so I don't believe you when you say you can't do it." "It's been five months, Maggie. Five months." "Seven, if you count Vulcan." "What if I'm still having emotional backlash from my parents' deaths?" "Then you should have thought about it before he slid that rock on your finger, which, you know, how do you lift that hand, exactly?" "You aren't helping me have a prenuptial panic attack- "

There are rules for everything, and the real cruelty is that none of them are written, all unspoken, but firmly etched in every Vulcan's mind as though etched in stone.

"Oh god, was there a prenup?" "I- no." "Oh my god, he wants to be married to you forever!" she squeals, beaming at her. Amanda can't help but smile back, because while she thinks it, it's nice to have someone else say it too. "So you'll be my maid of honor?" "Do Vulcan weddings have maids of honor?" "No. But we're having one ceremony here, and one ceremony there. I think he feels that as Ambassador he needs to provide" "The appearance of respecting his bride's culture? Are you going to wear white?" "I think that's the idea- very traditional." "Does it matter to you?" "Not really. I'm not.what does the ceremony matter, really? Ends justify the means, and all." "Did you just go Machiavellian on your wedding?" "I told you, I'm under a lot of stress." She goes out every Thursday with Maggie, who helps her remember that she's not Vulcan, and she's not trying to be. That Sarek didn't propose because he hoped she'd turn into a proper Vulcan. She respects their culture and their ways deeply and she's not trying to disgrace them, but she's human. She's Terran, and she won't be anything less.

But, as per her new instructions, she isn't allowed to even participate in the debate. She's not allowed to engage in it, not in the planning of the ceremony, not in the roll out of information, none of it. Which makes her feel fairly out of control, actually, and so she goes to her office, wearing her approved outfit, collects all of her notes on western and eastern and Arabic learning methods which created the current Standard Earth Education model, lets her bodyguard (bodyguard) part the crowd of students, some of whom are shouting, "Yeah, Professor Grayson! Knockin' down the walls of oppression, man!" (and that, she knows, without even looking, is Joseph Macaby, who smokes his weight in marijuana every day). Others are looking at her like she's a battered woman who needs rescuing. There's even a sign: !!YOU ARE NOT ALONE!! Still others are looking at her speculatively and lustily, because whenever something new is introduced into the mainstream consciousness it must by necessity be fetishized. Fucking college students. Sotchik says nothing as he opens the door for her to the embassy, and she smiles and says, "Thank you, Sotchik," because they're assholes but he's just doing his job. Besides, if she's going to be mad at Vulcan in a truly irrational way, it's going to be fucking Sarek. She slams her PADD and her books and her notes onto the desk of her study, draws the blinds, and starts writing, curling her feet under her and reading endlessly, marking data away. "I have been informed that you have been in here for eighteen hours," he says. "Are you a walking clock, now?" "You are upset."

Except that once word gets out, it becomes the property of everyone else, she realizes, sipping her orange juice and trying to find her zen place (she thinks it went with a scream of protest into the night about the moment she said "yes"). There are protesters outside the embassy. People yelling about abominations, about how like ought marry like. Waves of signs and people who aren't even Terran.

"Well-spotted." He sits on the couch- he looks ridiculous when he sits on couches- and regards her. "Amanda."

"I'm having a meltdown, Sarek. This is what a very human panic attack looks like: we distract ourselves from the ugly and the uncontrollable with minutiae which we can control, all right? This ends the 'look at the Human' lesson of the day, I haven't- " she breaks off, because now, oh, It is a new front in a culture war, she thinks as she watches them, screaming yes, nowshe's crying. Oh good, this is good. Because Sarek has no idea and spitting as though her marriage, her decision to marry Sarek, is going to what to do with crying. personally affect them- as though they'll be ripped from their marriages and "I'll be fine," she says finally, wiping her eyes. "I just have to get used to forced to marry a Klingon now. this, and it's very overwhelming and it feels very fragile." "If it is upsetting to watch them, it is logical to withdraw," Sarek says, placing "We are getting married," he says, and she looks at him, and there's a hand on her shoulder. She covers it with his, squeezing lightly- he does this, sometimes, a little awkwardly, having sensed or observed that humans something about the set of his shoulders that is reassuring, and so she goes over, tucks against him and rests her head against his shoulder and lets him require some sort of physical touch to indicate reassurance. hold her. "Call it morbid fascination," she says lightly. "I'm hungry," she says an interminable time later, and she gets a faint curl of She reads, quietly, books of the civil rights movement, Ruby Bridges- thinks amusement- remembers that he's a touch-telepath, and smiles. if a child could endure such hatred then surely she, a twenty-six year old doctor, can handle this. Surely. And enduring is bearable, as long as she doesn't look out the window, or turn on the holovids where so-called "experts" are debating the pros and cons, whether it's a sham to test the still-new dissolving of legalities around interspecies and interplanetary marriages; discussing the age differential; rooting up past boyfriends and, since no Vulcan will participate in this lunacy, speculating on whether this is a "logical act by the Vulcan Ambassador to Earth to strengthen diplomatic ties by marrying one of Earth's daughters." Which leaves the sour taste of religion and patriarchy in her mouth, and makes her want to rage black-out for a minute. The wedding is so ghastly that she is pretending it never happened. She watches the footage of herself going onto the shuttle to take her to Vulcan for their wedding, the slant of Sarek's eyebrows fierce and her own expression faintly amused- they're calling her "Lady Amanda," now. Mostly because none of them can pronounce Sarek's family name. She can't pronounce it, through she tries, tongue tripping over the sounds as he watches her. She's leaning against his bare chest, her fingers laced and her chin resting atop them, and he sighs and leans in, kisses her into silence.

The bond is fresh- it's a strange thing to have access to his mind; to his childhood, to see herself as he sees her (and wow, she gets atrociously red and splotchy when she's having hysterics). But stranger still is reconciling the fact that he feels everything. And the coating of logic is strong enough that he doesn't even seem to know how much he feels, but she feels it, and then feels everything she's feeling on top of it, and for three days after the wedding she won't let him touch her because every time he does she comes, hard, without being touched, and she's always throbbing and when she sits she's unconsciously shifting her hips and pressing her thighs together until she realizes what she's doing. After three days he decides he's done tiptoeing and sits her down to teach her how to shield herself. "You should have done that before," she informs him petulantly. "I am aware of that," he retorts, and the faintest brush of wry smile that lurks in her mind is his. Then she reaches up and kisses him, because they've never moved slow, and he said the words and he's hers, and she's going to test this whole controlling-the-bond thing by fire, pulling him to their bedroom. He's straining against his pants- Vulcan control is very impressive, she spares a moment to think before her thoughts are tugged to more present matters, and she brushes her fingers down his, lifting his hand to her mouth and sucking each digit into her mouth as he watches under heavily-lidded eyes. His free fingers trace the outline of her lips, while his other hand remains on his thigh. She smiles, letting his wet fingers fall from her mouth, unbuttoning her gown, and it's probably not the point of Vulcan clothing, that disrobing would be even more erotic from having been so covered and hidden, but it works for her. She pushes him back, kissing him and taking his tongue into her mouth, even as he rolls her, one of his thighs between hers, causing her to roll her hips, riding it as best she can for some stimulation. She smiles, wrapping a leg around Sarek's and arching against him so his cock drags against her, and it's as much a tease to her as it is to him, but she can feel how it feels to him, and so she does it again, breath hitching until he covers her mouth with his, presses her down into the bed. The sheets are cool, which is a delicious counterpoint to the heat of him as she arches, wrapping her arms around his back and her legs around his hips, desperate for it, for him, in a way that she hasn't been before, and she wants to ride him until they're both raw, until he's torn sound from his lips and she's shaking the walls with her screams, and just like that they're flipped, his eyes bright and she laughs, helplessly, kissing him before reaching between them, guiding his cock inside and settling down, feeling full of him, gasping as she settles against his hipbones, whining because she can feel this from two directions, and her nails scrape into his chest as she shudders through her first orgasm. His fingers are forcing their way into her lips and she accepts them, sucks filthily, twining her tongue around them as she raises up and then shoves back down on him, grinding helplessly against him until the world shifts and he's driving into her, hot and desperate, his hands pressing into the mattress behind her shoulder, and she watches him, hazily, and thinks, yes, and gorgeous, and mine. And when he comes, shuddering into her, she, who has never believed the myth of simultaneous or near-simultaneous orgasms, falls right behind him. She blames the meld. Or she will, when she can breathe again.

And she thinks that it would genuinely sting more, if Sarek cared at all, but because he doesn't and because she's bonded to him, it doesn't bother her as much as she thought. They spend their first three months of marriage on Vulcan, and then he has to go back to Earth. And now it's her turn to go to all the summits, to speak with president's and prime minister's wives, to speak with governors and former tyrants. To speak with their spouses, and when Maggie calls her a year later and says, "So, you're in California, and I get no visit? I'm crying into my pillow," Amanda laughs and has her over. "So really," Maggie says, smiling as they're curled up watching old holovids of Pride and Prejudice and watching Darcy shudder and stumble through saying "I love you" just before Elizabeth rips him a new one, "what are you going to do about the having a family thing?" Which reminds her that they'd begun that conversation at least seven times, and he always manages to distract her. "Sarek," she says flatly, because he's not logicking his way out of this, planting her fists on her hips. "I want a baby. I want our baby." "The technology- " "Is there." She sent it to Maggie when she'd finished combing through the weeks' worth of papers and data, and Maggie had mostly sworn up and down about goddamn advanced Vulcans, but agreed that it was feasible. She looks at him, and then touches his face gently. "I want this. I married you and I love you and I want to meet the child we'll make." And she can feel the moment he gives in, and she strokes the back of her fingers down his cheek and then leans up on tiptoe to kiss him. "Thank you." Which is entirely easier said then done, because she has to take a regimen of vitamins and hormones and supplements, and they have to go to Vulcan and she has to face T'Pau's icy disapproval feels like being caught under the ice in a freezing lake, but she just sets her jaw and stays implacable: she is the mountain. And then she's pregnant, which staggers even her, and sends the household into the Vulcan version of a flurry of activity, with Sarek shifting his schedule and one of the clan-members, a woman named T'Pev, a cousin of whom Sarek is relatively fond, forces her to bed, and instructs her in a daily regimen of hypos that leave her feeling lethargic and detached from her own body, shivering even in the dry Vulcan heat. But she's happy, even if she has to stay put and have the replicator moved to her bed (and pineapple always tastes like pears, which she decides is fine, mind over matter, but pear-tasting pineapple is inherently wrong), and she writes another book, this one about the importance of religion in the early creation of learning institutions on Earth, and only cries a little when Sarek has to go back to Earth to be the Ambassador, because it's not logical for him to stay: what is he going to do, other than rub her ankles and smooth kisses with the pads of his fingers over the hypo-injection sites to soothe the sting? Nothing. And then it's the month of delivery, and she tries not to think what if. What if Spock- his name is Spock- is stillborn? What if he doesn't survive? What if he's horrible disfigured and the scans didn't pick up on it? She goes into labor in the middle of a panic attack, which probably means the kid is Vulcan in disposition and telling her to chill out. Labor is long, and she should have asked Maggie to be here so Maggie could yell back at her when she screams because it hurts, but she has Sarek, who doesn't flinch when she drags her fingernails down the back of his hand, and T'Pau and T'Pev, and then it's done- it's over, and they're putting a baby into her arms, and she sobs, holding him and counting fingers and toes and laughing because he's perfect, with black hair on top of his head and dark eyes and ears that curl a little into a point.

The Vulcans hate her.

"Hi, Spock," she says quietly, stroking his cheek with a finger as he looks at her, trying to project all the love and adoration and protectiveness she feels at him, because he's a baby touch-telepath. Sarek bends down, and she offers Spock to him, and the two look at each other, and then Spock starts wailing. Sarek's eyebrow raises, and Amanda laughs, extending her hands. "He's probably hungry." He quiets when she holds him, and Sarek leans on the bed and shifts so she is leaning against him, and she looks down at Spock, who is observing his world with an expression that seems to say he's not so sure about all of this. He's perfectly healthy, T'Pau informs them, and she'll be fine. "He is a conflicted child of two worlds," T'Pau adds. "She's just jealous," Amanda whispers to Spock confidingly, "because you have more hair than she has." Spock broadcasts contentment, and she smiles, and wonders if she'll always be able to read him as well as she reads Sarek. She hopes so: she's his mother. But even still, she spares a moment to wonder if she's doing the selfish thing, but not the right thing: if her desire for a child is damning the child she's had to a lifetime of torment. She's not sure if her love- if the unconditional love she has for him will be enough. She hopes so, and it's a big galaxy- somewhere out there there is a kindred spirit. Punch It waldorph Summary: The first thing George Kirk ever says to Chris is 'Hey, you, c'mere!' Notes: beta'd by the lovely izzyfics and the unalterable force which is merisunshine36. Written for screamlet. (See the end of the work for more notes) Work Text: 1. "Damnit, Chris, for Christ's sake!" Pop shouts. Chris shifts from the couch, glancing into the kitchen. Whoops, forgot to clean the frying pan. Whatever, not like grilled cheese is a tough thing to clean up. He'll do it when he's done with the sandwich. That decided, he slides back down, shifts, and flips the channel. "Chris," Pop hollers. "What?" "You could show some respectyour mother and I work our asses off and you trash the hou" "Trash the house, what the fuck, I left the frying pan on the stove! Ohhh, watch out, soon we'll be infested with roaches!" He's standing, head ringing slightly and blood pounding because Pop's yelling could take the roof off and what the fuck, overreaction? "Don't you take that tone with me, young man, you know exactly what kind of bullshit this is and you" "And I what? It's Saturday, my homework's done, I'm having lunch! I get straight As, I'm not getting into shit all the time, so what the fuck is yourproblem?" "Your language is a problem, don't think I won't take you over my knee like you were five"

"Oh, just try it," Chris snarls, weight balanced on the balls of his feet and ready to run or fight or maybe just blast into the sky. "I will not" "I'm not listening!" Chris yells over him, because Pop can blow the roof off but Chris's voice is at a decibel level high enough to peel paint, and grabbing the keys to his brother's hoverbike from the counter as he slams onto the front porch. Ma's in the front yard, watering flowers, and looks up as the screen door slams. "Chris," Ma sighs, a rebuke, using the tone she uses on her kindergarten kids. "You shouldn't" "Yeah, we should all shut up and bow before the master of the house," he sneers, straddling the bike and revving her engine, taking it up and out, over the sand and towards the sun. He's Icarus. Sky's the limit. He comes down, though. Always comes back down, walks into the house, and everyone stays quiet. His brother John will go out and check the bike to make sure Chris didn't destroy it, and his other brother Dave will bring the food to the table and the conversation will wind carefully around topics of conversation that won't piss his father off. And quietly, Chris will burn because it's the same shit, a different day, and nothing ever gets fixed. He's eight years younger than his brothers. Dave and John are twins, though they don't even look like brothers at all. Dave is stocky and square; walks with a swagger even though he insists that he doesn't. He's a foreman down at the plant that makes parts for the flagships, down in Mojave Valley. John is working his way to being the local union rep. Right now he's just got dreams of being a pain in the ass. Thing is, Pop has depression. He's middle-management at the plant, and his psychiatrist moved away last year and apparently there's a lot of shifting of the workforce and specializing going on because they're working on some new ships for the fleet that'll be ready by the time Pop is dead in the ground, for fuck's sake. But anyway, Pop's beenbad. The only time he's got for Chris is the time he spends jumping on him for stupid little shit. John and Davethey can remember when Dad would like, go to school plays and teach them to work on bikes and the cars and around the house but Chrishe just came too late. And Pop never lets him forget it. The worst part is, Chris seems to push all his buttons, and so the whole family tiptoes around this minefield and Chris is just sick of it. Tired. Ma tells him to try to understand, but Chris is thirteen, and he doesn't have depression: he can't understand and maybe doesn't want to. Everything he knows of depression he knows from the ads that have people devastated, mopey, incapable of interacting in them. Depression is supposed to make people really sad, not huge assholes. Dave and John still live at home, even though they're twenty-one and Dave is almost ready to marry Brian Forsetti and Nadia Breaker is looking at John like he might be her everything (which Chris personally thinks is freaking John out, but Nadia's kind of determined and he expects a wedding in a year). Chris thinks they live at home to help Ma; to act as a buffer zone. His brothers are kind of awesome. His pop, he just sucks. But John lets Chris ride the bike and he heads into the desert for hours and hours on end with a water bottle and a few power bars and looks over at the plant, and then points towards San Francisco, and thinks, Yeah, I'm out.

2. His pop gets better as Chris hits sixteen, though. Tries to make up for it, sees a doc twice a week to help, takes the meds. Dave married Brian, and they live in a house down the road. John managed to avoid Nadia Breaker, but he lives in the house across the street from Brian, and the whole street likes to watch as the union rep slams out his porch door hollering about that sonovabitch and the foreman comes back out waving a sheaf of papers. Chris can't hear well enough to know what they're fighting about, but John just did a surprise workplace safety inspection, so it's probably to do with that. "They always did like yelling the place down," Ma observes. "Over what?" Chris wants to know, drinking his lemonade and shaking his head as they yell. She laughs, kisses his forehead. "Oh, baby. You never did quite fit." She pauses reflectively, watching as John lays down on the ground hollering how he will prevail. "You get that from my side of the family." She goes into the house, and Dave threatens to kick John, who shouts that the violent oppressive hand of the corrupt capitalist system has kept down the working man for too long, and Dave says that John doesn't even know what half that shit means. Chris is beginning to doubt he's biologically linked to these people. Sure, he and John look alike, but seriously. Ma comes back out, and hands him a packet of paperwork. "School called, said you were already to graduate. You should have said something." "Iwell, I was gonna, but" he shrugs, unsure of how to finish that sentence. He was going to, but.

is at his leisure there. Wryly amused when Winona Kirk bawls someone out. And Jesus fuck can she bawl. She's intense like the sun, but never quite flares. Like a black hole, maybe. "Hey, you, c'mere!" Lieutenant Commander Kirk says, and Chris comes over. "You know how to keep the ship from crashing into the asteroids?" "Ithe asteroids that are far away?" he asks, dubiously, checking the viewing screen and then the screen in front of himyeah, they're at least three hours from hitting those asteroids. Lieutenant Commander Kirk's lips twitch. "Yeah, those ones." "I think I can handle it." "Good. I'm starving. Pike's got the conn!" Lieutenant Commander Kirk announces. "Do you have any experience out of a sim room?" a woman asks him. "None." "Fucking George," the other helmsman laughs. "Okay, kid. Don't kill us all." George comes back, sits in the captain's chair with a plate full of food and his legs folded underneath him. "Excellent work not getting us killed, Pike." "Thank you, sir." "Carry on!" He even manages to navigate them through the asteroid belt, though he doesn't see why they're going through it when they could go over it. "Gamma shift now ending," the computer chimes. "Alpha shift crewmen, please replace Gamma shift."

She nods. "Starfleet takes kids young as seventeen," she points out, and then grabs her broom and marches forcefully across the road to Dave's, and Ensign Tully, who he actually had a few classes with, grins at him and takes his place. begins yelling at the two of them to stop making such a scene, for fuck's sake. "Hey, Pike!" Kirk calls to him as Chris debates the merits of eating versus "I think it'd be good for you," Pop says, and Chris turns to look at him, wary just crashing into bed. "Have breakfast with me." because he's always a little wary, waiting for the shoe to drop. Pop nods to the papers. "Shouldn't get stuck here building 'em, Chris. Should go out and fly 'em." Chris waits for some dig about how he always thought he was better, how Chris is such an ungrateful shit, for anything but it doesn't come, and Pop shifts his weight awkwardly and goes back into the house. "I was" he begins, but he kind of made up his mind as soon as the invite was issued. "Gonna have breakfast with me, I know. It's like I've got ESP or something," Kirk agrees, spreading his hands in wonder at his own ability.

"Mr. Kirk, report?" the captain says as he passes them, lifting one of his heavy eyebrows. The light glints off of his head: he must have just shaved it. Well, shit. He goes because it seems like a good note to leave on: Pop does When he looks at them, Chris realizes he thinks of a hawk. Captain Robau that awkward "I'm trying really hard to prove I'm a good dad without is a hawk-like man. pressuring you into dialoguing" thing and Ma gets weepy and John and They both snap to attention. Well, Chris does, so hard it's possible he's Dave pretend it's no big deal but hang around the house a lot right before going to break something one of these days. George Kirk sort of, braces, Chris leaves, and then Chris hops a shuttle and leaves Mojave in the dust but doesn't snap. and doesn't look back. "Nothing to report, sir. Tested out our navigation systems through an 3. asteroid belt, and she held in one piece." He graduates from Starfleet and goes straight into Command School. His "I am glad to hear of it, Mr. Kirk. Enjoy your breakfast. Mr. Pike." He turns advisor likes him and knows the captain of the Kelvin and apparently pulls his dark eyes onto Chris and Chris reminds himself that he's a Starfleet some strings, and gets him assigned to the Kelvin, as an ensign, to get his officer. He's not going to fucking quail. Captain Robau nods, and continues practical experience and write his dissertation. striding purposefully down the hall. For the first few months he's too awed to actually say anything, to get in "So. You're writing your dissertation," Kirk says as he starts walking towards anyone's way. He's technically an emergency relief helmsman, but mostly the transporter. he ends up in navigation doing a lot of star charting. A lot of star charting. He says "sorry" almost as much as he inhales. "Allegedly," Chris agrees as the transporter doors slide shut. New crew syndrome, he guesses. The only people who aren't feeling their way around each other are the captain and his second in engineering, and his XO. Chris isn't sure that they've worked together, thoughwell, obviously George Kirk and Winona Kirk know each other, but the captain Kirk grins at him and doesn't say anything as they enter the very busy cafeteria. He walks over and punches seven buttons on the console of the replicator. He gets three plates piled high. He follows Chris's incredulous gaze down and then beams.

"I'm a growing boy from the heartland," he says earnestly. "You're older than me," Chris points out, and decides that even though technically it's time for breakfast, his body thinks it's time for dinner, so he gets a grilled cheese sandwich. And then, after a moment of deep contemplation, tomato soup. "Yeah, don't even talk to me, there," Kirk snorts and sits down. "I want to know," Winona Kirk demands silkily as she leans against the table next to where Kirk has planted himself, "why anyone signed Hastings up as head of engineering." "Because we brought you on as his number two." Kirk lifts his eyebrows at her and Chris shifts, trying to be relatively unobtrusive butthey're having the conversation right in front of him. What's he going to do, be invisible? "When I kill him in his sleep," she says, in a way that is completely genuine, "I will be so gratified." "Sweetheart, you're psychotic," Kirk informs her, tugging her down for a kiss, which Chris definitely studies his grilled cheese during. "Have fun terrorizing the crew, try not to make any of the newbies lock themselves on the wrong side of an airlock." "I promise nothing," she replies with a smile, and it changes her whole face, that smile. "Don't mind her," Kirk says as soon as she's gone, loading his fork. "She really is psychotic." "She's your wife," Chris points out after swallowing the last bite of half his sandwich. Okay, maybe he was seriously hungry. "I'm an expert on the subject," he agrees with a grin. "Call me George," he says, extending a hand. "Chris." Chris shakes the hand, and then grins kind of ridiculously, and the he's annoyed by how pleased he is. He's twenty-four. Grow the fuck up. "Good. Now. Talk to me about what fascinating thing you're going to write your dissertation on." "Homicidal 2ICs," he deadpans, and George laughs.

"Sammy?" "Yeah, my oldest. He's five; another part of the reason we're only out here for the year. I mean, it seriously seriously sucks, but. You make do." "Do you know what she's" "Too early." George Kirk has mastered the ability of simultaneously speaking and inhaling his food. Chris's is going cold, but he can't stop staring in horrified fascination. "And we like the surprise. I think it's gonna be another boy, though. "But, the reason I like you, Chris," George says, leaning across and pointing at him with a loaded fork, "is because you yelled at her." Chris freezes. "Um?" "Two weeks ago. Yelled right back at her to give you all a fucking break. I heard about it for the whole rest of the week." He laughs. "This whole thing is gonna be a blast." He leans back, stretches out and locks his fingers behind his head, looking pleased with the entire world, and Chris shifts uncomfortably because oh shit. He's crushing on the XO. The married-with-a-kid-and-another-on-the-wayXO. 4. He's pretty sure Winona knows. That she catches him looking, and it's not like he's going to make a moveGeorge is so in love with his wife that he honest-to-god doesn't notice when other girls walk by. And he's married, and part of what Chris likes about him is his unswerving devotion to his psychotic wife. It's just a kind of really inconvenient crush and maybe he jerks off a few times. It's no big deal. And it's worse that he kind of likes Winona, after a few months. He gets loud and angry, she gets cold and sneering, and George laughs at both of them afterwards like it's the funniest thing in the world, and she's scary, sure, but

There's a release in being able to shout at her about something. It's very "I so do not want to be captain," he says. "No desire. I'm happy to be an XO, freeing to not give a shit about someone's feelings and know they'll be fine. but" he trails off, takes a bite, shaking his head. "Anyway, we're only out That tomorrow you'll work fine together. Relatively. for a year on this mission." Okay, someday she might actually cut him, and he's very aware of that fact, "Not the three?" and that she lets him get away with as much as she does because George likes him and probably goes to bat for him and George gets away "No, she's pregnant, which they knew when they signed us on, but. Apparently they really had to get people out here. This whole crew is kind of with murder, like calling her "sweetheart." hodge-podged, really." He looks around. "Border planets. I don't know why Pike slides in as third rotation helmsman and does a lot of paperwork on anyone wants to go out to live by the Neutral Zone: it's like asking for shifts he's not writing. trouble, you know?" Robau even stops in a few times and asks him how he's doing. Chris nods. "That's what I'm supposed to be writing on. The impulse to 5. colonize up to the Neutral Zone, despite frequent redrawing, and the extent Chris is getting off Alpha shift, yawning hugely because he made the of the Federation's responsibility to police it." mistake of taking over Hutaka's Gamma shifts since he'd had 24 hours off "Sucks to be you, man." because of some scheduling mix-up, and Hutaka was throwing up everywhere. "What'd you write on?" "How to avoid inter-personnel relationships." Chris is pretty sure he's being fucked with. "Seriously?" "Look it up." "So you did all the work" "And then ignored it. Well, you know. We weren't really supposed to end up on the same ships. She was actually supposed to work at one of the 'yards doing development, but that didn't work out 'cause she's seriously good at keeping these things in the air." He shrugs. "But, it kinda sucks 'cause we had to leave Sammy in Riverside with my parents" George is coming down, running a hand through his hair to smooth it and when he catches sight of Chris he grins at him and says, "She's going to have that baby or I'm going to reach up and pull it out, I swear, Chris. Never get a woman pregnant. Whatever torments they wreak upon us, they're multiplied by approximately three million when they're pregnant." Chris laughs into his hand, slightly, hearing the exhausted and almost hysterical edge it takes. "Have fun on beta, sir," he says, and then heads to his room to fall asleep.

He wakes up when the klaxons go off, runs the hall and checks the "We're headed to that rock?" an older man demands incredulously. Science computer to see where they've been hit: engineering. His stomach drops out officer. Fuck off and die, if he's got a better idea he should have thought of it and he checks, because that would be before Chris got in charge. Winona's gone into labor: she's in medical. Thank fuck for small favors, then. That's all he has time to think as he runs down with Hastings and Takagi, trying to evacuate where they've been worst hit, and then the general evac order goes out and that'sGeorge. Which means Robau's either out of commission or dead, which makes this whole situation even worse. He checks the computer because someone has to fucking direct this evacuation and if they lost the lower decks then they just lost a ton of the shuttles and yeah, great, they're down to nineteen L-Class couriers and the one medical. Fuck. That's forty people to a courier. He turns around and squints against the blaring red and the smoke drifting up from the lower decks. That's Hastings. "Hastings!" he yells, and Hastings turns around. "We've got forty to a courier, close the door once you've got it! We lost more than half of them in that last hit, and Medical 37 is sealed already!" Hastings nods, because Chris is twenty-four and a kid, but he's the one yelling the loudest, and that's what matters. Chris runs back down the hall, coughing and sealing off the lower decks because they're going to have an oxygen vacuum before "It's a useless case!" one of the engineers shouts. "We gotta get out now, kid!" "Everybody up?" he yells over the sound of twisting metal and snapping pipes. "Everybody who's gonna make it!" the engineer shouts over his shoulder. Chris looks around, but there's no one in the hall, not that he can see anyway, and he jumps the flight of stairs down to meet up with the stragglers heading down the hangar bay corridor and files into the last shuttle in the hangar. "Why haven't they gone?" he demands as the door slams shut behind him, shoving his way through to the pilot's chair. He's not sure what he'd have done if someone was piloting: probably sat down and had a breakdown. He's just functioning on the assumption that because he can fly it, he will. As it is, the seat's empty, but in the copilot's seat is a young woman in command's blue. He thinks she's a navigatormaybe does gamma a lot. "Ready?" he asks the woman sitting in the copilot's chair. She's disengaged them, and he opens communications to the other pilots. "Ready," she agrees. "Punch it!" he shouts, and slams them out of the hangar. He doesn't watch what happens next; he's too busy trying not to get hit, because George (and it has to be George, going down with the shipin his head Robau's been dead since he heard George give the evacuation order. Maybe it's both of them, but this isn't really the time to think about this kind of shit) can fight them off but not that longthere isn't that much time, and they're too close to the Neutral Zone and Klingon space and they've got to get to "What's the nearest outpost?" he demands tightly. "Haven," the woman says. "Contacting Governor Book now." She does that, and he leans around to look behind them. They've got thirtyeight people in there, a lot of them bleeding pretty badly. "Listen up," he barks into the channel broadcasting to all the shuttles. "We're headed to Haven, which'll take us about 18 hours at Warp 3. I don't want to push it, let's just" "That rock's closest thing in Federation Space," Chris snaps, and then coughs; his throat feels burned from the smoke. "And we're in the Neutral Zone, too fucking close to Klingon space for me to be really picky about where we go. We're headed to Haven." He shuts off the transmission, and forces his fingers to relax. "Governor Book has medical personnel standing by," the woman says. "At warp factor three I calculate our arrival to take longer 18 hours, especially as the courier is highly overcrowded. Also, given that dataset, I suggest we do not go over that rate of speed." "Yeah," he agrees. "I need a status report on the wounded we've got, and how bad" he trails off. "I'm really sorry, what's your name?" "Number One," she replies smoothly, opening the communication channel. He blinks. "Right," he agrees. "Of course it is." Behind him there are thirty eight people, most of them hurt. People are coughing and sharing the lav and throwing up, and there's the sound of crying and it feels claustrophobic, and he's got the luxury of the viewing screen. He can at least see space. He's not they all head out into space for the luxury of it. For its vastness. This feels like the worst kind of cruelty, to shove them all into a tin can like sardines. "If we have to rely on impulse power," she informs him after two hours of silence, "we'll have to resort to cannibalism. We're not equipped with replicators." He stares at her, and then begins to panic. "Weis something shutting down? Is one of the other shuttles having a problem with" "No," she says. She doesn't soundbothered. It's starting to eat into his facade of calm. "I am just preparing for any eventuality." "Do it in your head." "As you wish." Later, when he's known her longer, he's going to realize that that was completely her way of reassuring herself. Of dealing. Later, he'll know how to comfort her; to realize that she needs it. But that'll all come later. Right now he has people flat lining in the back of his shuttle. "Shit, she's going into cardiac arrest!" someone shouts. He can't turn around; the autopilot is sketchy here at best, and so he grips the controls tightly as the medical personnel shout about needing space and other people shout about how there isn't any and then "it's okay. She's alright," comes the verdict and they all shudder a little in relief. The third time it happens there's not as much fuss. The tracheotomy causes a stir, though. They make it to Haven 20 hours after jettisoning from the Kelvin, exhausted and jittery from the nerves. "Who is in charge here?" Governor Book asks. He has very kind eyes, and Chris wants to tell him that. "I am," Chris says, when none of the other higher-ranking officials says anything. This is his punishment for yelling the loudest. Book's eyes flick up and down him, but he nods. "I imagine you'll be needing food" "Medical attention. We had three in cardiac arrest and one tracheotomy, and apparently there are a few people who are breathing, but won't wake up. And a few cases of shock, and" Number One hands Book a PADD.

A man whose uniform says he's an admiral steps up, and Chris wants to know where the fuck he came from. Then he realizes that really, it took them twenty hours. The admiral could have heard from Book and gotten here to Haven and waited for them in that time. He glances behind them and sees a lot of Starfleet personnelfar more than would occupy a rock like Haven normally. "Where the hell is Lieutenant Commander Kirk?" the admiral demands. "Dead, sir," Chris says. There'd been a moment, on the shuttles, when they were figuring out who was on what shuttle and taking the rostera moment where some part of him had gone He could be alive. But he wasn't on the rosters, and then the pilot, Tanz, on Medical Shuttle 37 had said that the XOno, the actingno, the captain was dead: he'd been on the ship. "What about Commander Kirk?" "Um, Winona is" on MS37. Which issomewhere, parked. She just had a baby, so he doesn't figure she's getting off the shuttle "Right here," she snaps. She looks tired, hair loosely pulled back, with the baby cradle against her neck in one arm and a phaser, which he notes is on and set to 'stun' in her other. Oh shit, she's lost it. "Good job," she tells Chris, who is in the middle of trying to signal that she's crazy to the admiral, who's standing right in her way. "Coming from you that means next to nothing," Chris informs her, feeling jittery and punchy and this at least is somewhat normal, and hey, if she stuns him he'll get to sleep. "Get the fuck out of my way," she tells Admiral Whatever-his-name-is. She's ignoring Chris, which is probably for the best. "Kirk, you're senior surviving officer, and I need a full" the admiral begins. Behind them people are being unloaded and treated: some getting to the medical buildings and some people are getting emergency operations right thereChris snaps his head back around at the whine of a phaser. Winona's got it pointed at the Admiral's head. "I will drop you where you stand. If you're lucky my hand won't slip and it'll only be 'stun.'"

someone who was there and is smart has to tell the truth. I can trust you not to bullshit this." "Yeah," Pike agrees immediately. "Of course." "Good. That's what I thought. Go home, kid. Take a few weeks, go home, see your family." 6. "Oh, baby," Ma says, and hugs him tightly. He hugs her back, loosely. He can't quite get there. "C'mon, we'll have a beer," Dave says, handing him one as they settle on the porch. "You okay?" John asks. Chris looks at him. "My best friend died," he says, because he might have had a crush, but he'd never had a friend like George, andit was a stupid thing to say about him, but it was as close to the truth as Chris could get it. "And I spent eighteen hours in a shuttle with a woman who acts like a Vulcan but is human, who told me we probably wouldn't have to resort to cannibalism, but apparently she drew up a list, and there was blood everywhere and I can still smell it and I don't even know what that ship was and now they want me to" Dave reaches out and puts a hand on his knee, and Chris shuts up, breathing through his nose. "No," he says finally. "I'm not okay." "You'll get there," John says. "No," he says, because he's pretty sure it's the honest to fuck all truth. "I don't think I will. Not for a while." Ma makes him stay for two weeks, and Chris he wants to know where Winona went. If she's gone back home and is trying to pretend that this is ever going to be normal. He wonders what Number One is doing; if she'sit just seemed to glide off of her like she was teflon or something.

He looks down the phaser, and then into her face, and steps aside. Book When he closes his eyes he can see her talking to one of the engineers. He lifts his communicator and says quietly, "Commander Kirk is coming through was babbling, curled up in a ball and twice her size, but she'd sat down with a child. Please do not detain her, and give her what she needs." cross-legged and put her hands on his knees and listened to him with her head cocked, birdlike, brown hair tangling in the wind that was blowing The admiral looks at Chris helplessly. "She's senior officer." through the complex on Haven with a vengeance. She looked so queerly "No, sir. I think I am," Chris says, and tells himself that that burning feeling serious, with her big eyes and small nose and pointy chin. Strongest person in his throat? Lingering smoke inhalation damage. Nothing to do with the there and she looked like a good breeze would have knocked her over. fact that all he wants to do is cry. He goes back to his apartment, pulls up a PADD, and starts writing that "Okay," the admiral sighs. "Okay. What's your name, kid?" fucking dissertation. "Pike, sir. Christopher Pike." 7. "Okay. Go get checked out. This can wait." He opens the door expecting Chinese food, and finds Number One, looking There are endless debriefings, closed sessions of the Federation Congress up at him seriously. and with the cabinet and the admiralty, and when it's over Archer (who's the only one who's asking questions that don't scream "Cover our asses!" and seem to be more genuinely along the lines of "What do you think could have changed things?") pulls him aside and says, "You were writing your dissertation on something stupid, right?" "Iyeah?" Chris says, scrubbing his face. Archer nods sympathetically, and squeezes his arm reassuringly. "Write it on what happened. Consider it an order." "Yes sir." "Thing is, Pike. Strikes me as a little bit odd that things fell apart so bad that the ensign who was writing his dissertation ended up being the guy calling the shots. We wanna make sure things don't fall apart like that again He checks, just to make sure she hasn't like, broken her brain and become the delivery girl. She hasn't. "Um?" "I brought you this." She's got this weird way of talking. It's almost a British accent, but it's transatlantic. She's got a transatlantic accent. It's weird. He takes the light PADD from her, stepping inside to let her come in because he's not actually sure what he's supposed todo. Becausehe hasn't seen her since Haven. And it's not like they had a relationship orhe even liked her that much. "This is the list of who we should have eaten." "I broke it down in three parts," she agrees, looking around. "Nutritional value, workforce value, and morale." "Morale?" He feels like he's missing something. Something very very important.

"People who are competent and healthy but are obnoxious are very bad for four, but it takes about one-point-four to key in the sequence, so it's about morale. They should be eliminated first," she says, stepping over old clothes four seconds after the weapons went offline to when he punched in the gracefully. She's wearingballet slippers. Black, but those are ballet collision course." slippers, right down to the leather on the bottom. "You think no one else would have" He glances around. Yeah, he hasn't reallycleaned. In the past two "I don't know. It's just I think they might have, but not that fast. He owned months. it. Right then, at the last minute, he was going down, but he owned it and To the point where he ordered new underwear because he couldn't be bothered to clean his. That might have happened twice. There's a layer of grime on the floor, and empty take-out everywhere. He's embarrassed to know himself at that moment. saved us." "Will you be suggesting to Starfleet that it should train captains to be" she trails off, searching for a way to put it succinctly. He waits: someone has to, and he sure as shit can't. "You want them to be less practiced and more spontaneous so that when the familiar falls away they are not left grasping?" "Yes. Yeah. And I want to do it to the whole chain of command, if I can manage it. I want to have the Kobayashi Maru modified for the Kelvin's experience, run a few cadets through, then a few captains, compare the results. I think I can push that through. Maybe make them see that overtraining is a problem." She nods, bracing her chin on her fist. "Will you go back out?" He looks at her, surprised by the question, but more by the fact that he hasn't thought about it. "Yeah." She nods, the nudges him with her foot. "I would be interested in the results. And I am available if you require assistance. I am in the apartment two doors down from you." "Yeah." That's how he gets roped into daily runs at eight in the morning and a research partner who makes obsessive lists.

"Wait, wh" His brain catches up to what she just says, and then it's funnyit's just fucking funny, and he's gasping for breath, laughing so hard he's going to shake apart with it. She tilts her head, watching him. "You need to get out." He laughs, because she's right and he still has no fucking idea what's going on because seriously, what is this, but. "Yeah, well." "You're getting fat." Now that's just uncalled for. "I go running every morning at 0800," she informs him. "I will collect you." "Youwhat?" He blinks. "No, Number One, look, it'sI'm fine, I'm just, this dissertation and" "Do you think you've died and not noticed it yet?" she asks. He blinks at her. He's completely lost. At this point he thinks he should just roll with it. "Iwhat?"

She opens a shade. "'Excess of grief for the dead is madness; for it is an 8. injury to the living, and the dead know it not.' An intelligent observation, for a This is what they find out, at the end: Starfleet has an ideas shortage. Terran. Of course, Xenophon was alive almost three thousand years ago. The courses are so constricting that they don't give students a chance to Does that make it more admirable or less?" think for themselves; to be radical. And while that's fine for milk-runs, He's pretty sure that he's lost the entire train of this conversation. Entirely. venturing into unknown space with a fresh captain who follows all the rules It's just he has no idea what is going on. can be tricky. "He is dead, and you are alive. Act like it," she says. "I'll return at eight. Be Starfleet is suffering from a hivemind. Groupthink at its worst, where there's ready." right and wrong and no room for shades of gray. She shuts the door quietly behind her, and he stares at the door until the He posits that there's a correlation between George's lack of training in Chinese guy knocks, almost scaring him to death. He pays him and eats his commandhe was, after all, a science officer, even if he was the XOand mu xu pork, staring down at the five PADDs he has. He's beenshit, it's his youth (younger by four years than the average youngest captains) that been three months, and he's been lost in it. Stuck in that moment, in that led to his solution. George hadn't had the training; he'd just done what had day, reliving it until he feels like he was there for all of it; listening to the to be done. His mind hadn't been cluttered: he hadn't been thinking of transmission between George and Winona anything except making sure as many people lived as could. Only two hundred people died on the Kelvin. "Sweetheart can you hear me?" "I can hear you." "I love you so much. I love you" and parsing all the data before and after, what got sent to Starfleet, what the shuttles carried in their databankshe's reconstructed it and relived it from everyone's perspectives and it's He shuts them all off and goes to bed. She doesn't say anything about him being out of shape (he's not that bad, it's just he's not in top condition). Her hair is pulled into a ponytail and she's wearing a coordinating running outfit, and she looks so put together and he wonders if she stays put together the way he falls apart. That's an impossible statistic, given the situation. They should all have died. Winona Kirk comes to see him present his dissertation, once he finishes it. She's going back out, he's heard. She doesn't bring either of the kids. Just watches in her charcoal uniform as he presents and they listen. She doesn't stay for the reception or the discussions. He doesn't know what he wants from her. He doesn't know if he wants to say to her I'm doing something, trying to change things so it doesn't happen again, what are you doing? becausebecause he feels like she's judging him. Like he's been weighed, measured and found wanting. And he doesn't actually know why.

9. He slides back into Command School, and his experiences and references They get fresh-squeezed orange juice because he hasn't had anything fresh get him assigned to the Jimmy Carter as XO. He'll finish the next year and a in ages, and he finds himself saying, half of training, and then join up when she docks. At this rate he'll make captain in four years: it'll be a record. "The thing is, I don't think that anyone else with the training would have reacted that way. I did the math, and he had four seconds. Well, five-point-

He goes out to a bar on Filmore without Number Onewho's become a fixture in his life without him really noticing until it was too lateand sees Winona. She's just sitting there, jeans tucked into knee-high boots and a leather jacket slung over her shoulders. Her hair is shortercut more ragged around her face. Maybe she wore it long because George had liked it. She raises her shot glass to him. There's an empty in front of her already. He wonders if she's going to go back to Riverside. If she had the baby's Jim, named after her father, his brain reminds him first birthday with balloons and cake and managed to smile, and then hopped onto her bike and drove from Iowa to San Francisco, just to have a drink. He raises his back, and they knock back the shot from opposite ends of the bar, and then she gets up and leaves. He watches her go, and then goes home, bangs on Number One's door. "I'm having survivor's guilt," he says. She looks at him and then steps aside. Her apartment is clean and spartan; she could leave tomorrow and you'd never notice. "I know," she replies simply, and they sit together, still, on the couch as her clock ticks away the minutes. His skin feels too thin and like he's about to fly apart or he needs to get up, move, fight or He reaches over and takes her hand, feels her stiffen and then let him. "You okay?" he asks, quiet, because he hasn't asked her that before. Because she seems like it just doesn't hitlike she could take the absolute worst the universe has and dust her black pants off and keep on walking; knock on his door at eight and go for a run. But she was there, and he's getting better at knowing her: at reading a mood in the rhythm she sets for running, or in the way she holds her PADD or the slant of her eyebrow at any given moment. And he knows, now, that a year ago she wasn't okay, but she was doing what he'd done: pretended. She's just better at pretending than he is. "I amgetting there." He thinks about it. "Me too." He's twenty six when he hits the skies as an XO; he's thirty one when he takes over the Jimmy Carter for Rodriguez and takes Number One as his XO. 10. The thing about his relationship with Number One is, he looks at her and it's kind of terrifying. Because she gets him: she knows what buttons to push and she knows what look to give him and she's smarter than everyone he's met and she doesn't She doesn't need him. And he likes feeling needed. But they're marriedthey're that married couple, the parents on the ship.

Sulking, as he recalls. She was sulking at Starfleet in a very calm, ruthless way that made everyone really happy that he'd picked her as his XO. The thing about Number One is, she's not emotionlessit's not even Vulcan. It's just her personality and a result of the school system on Ilyria. If she has family, she doesn't know of them, but she doesn't seem to miss it maybe because she has no idea what to miss. He's not going to press the subject because what the hell does he know? "Okay, but did you date?" he asks. "Ever?" "A few times," she says, frowning. "Why?" "Well, I didn't know if you did, as a rule." "As a rule." Ah yes, there's the lovely "You're so full of shit" tone. He knows that tone well. "Never mind. You've got that report I had the yeoman send over?" "I have. If you're looking for someone to pursue, she might be amenable." "She's twenty." "Twenty-four." "That's ten years younger than I am. I would feel like a dirty old man." "Perhaps you should consult with Boyce. He knows a thing or two about that, I hear." She's smiling, leaning against the pillows, and it'd be a really easy thing to lean across and kiss her. "Yeah, maybe I'll go see Boyce," he agrees. The next day, after he gets off shift he heads down to sick bay. "Got time for a drink?" he asks Boyce, because that's the magic word. "Drink." It's got to be a CMO thing: every one of them he's ever met has been a functioning alcoholic. "I think I'm in love with Number One," he blurts after the first sip of his very dry martini. "You just figured this out?" "Phil." "No, I'm serious. How are you just figuring this out. All of Starfleet knows, Chris. Well, no one knows why she waits, but everyone knows you're headover-heels." "Someone could have told me!" "Who do you look for when you walk into a room. Any room?" "She's my" "If you finish that sentence with 'XO', Chris, I'll throw this martini at you," Phil warns, grinning. "Face it. You're deeply in love and scared shitless." "You're enjoying this." "I am loving this."

"Asshole." But then there are days when he finds his feet outside her door and can't He can't avoid her, and he can't stop realizing that not only has he remember what sent him coming here, only that here is the place he's got to categorized the way she looks at any given moment and that he not only be. reacts to it but doesn't notice? "Christopher?" Like when he catches Phil laughing the next day because Chris tells the "Do you date?" he asks after the door swings shut. She puts down her Yeoman to get them something to eat and then doesn't eat anything PADD and raises her eyebrows at him. because Number One was tapping her fingers in the way she does when she's waiting for lunch. It's a problem that he didn't notice this. "I mean, I've known you for six years now and I've dated in that time, but I don't think I've ever seen you out with a guy." "You're not privy to my social life," she points out. "There was a significant amount of time when you were here and I was still at Starfleet." 11. "I'm in love with you."

He probably should have waited for the door to close before he said that. She looks up at him from the bed, then behind him, then back to him, looking nonplussed. "I know." "Were you just going to let me" "I didn't think you'd be so stupid," she admits, resting the PADD on the table beside her bed. "And then I wasunsure of how to make you aware." She gives him a long look. "You're not usually so stupid, Christopher."

"Who else will I serve with?" she asks, quiet. "You are my captain." "Five years," he promises, sitting beside her on the couch. "Five years, and then we'll have the flagship of the fleet." "Yes, a new toy," she says wryly. "How delightful." "You're itching to get ahold of it," he snorts. "Don't try that with me." 13. He hates it.

That's not true. After three years Spock comes to Starfleet, and Chris starts "I'm very sorry." He grins, feeling a little reckless, alive and like maybe now's not to hate it so much. Stops taking so many leaves of absence to go back the time to do something really stupid. to Mojave to be with his parents, who are old, fuck, how'd that happen? "You should be." Spock is half-human, half-Vulcan, and full to fuck of attitude. But Chris has "Really, very sorry." He walks over to the bed, sits and braces his arm on been trained to notice really subtle indicators of emotion, and he thinks the other side of her thighs. She takes in his position, then looks at him, lips Spock appreciates it. Mostly Chris just likes that he winds up the admiralty almost curving into that laughing smile he sees every so often. and there's jack all they can do about it. Spock is brilliant, but he's halfHuman and half-Vulcan, and he's the Vulcan Ambassador to Earth's son, "You've said that," she points out. and Spock is not manageable. He grins, leans in and kisses her. Spock is an allywhen Chris recommends him to reprogram the Kobayashi "After having made a declaration of love you now expect intercourse?" Maru he thinks the captains who already have their commissions are going to cry when they test it. Maybe it'll give them something to think about. She's fucking with him. He thinks. Spock's bored, Pike realizes after he graduates earlyat twentythat's two "Jesus Christ," he mutters. "I'll settle for making out." years. It's like he's waiting for somethingutterly competent and original but "Making out" somehow stagnant. He kisses her, because yes, she's fucking with him, and she might kill him. Pike tells him to teach, and at twenty one Spock is a Commander. Pretty good. Okay, it's epic; record-breaking. 12. The sex might kill him. Mostly because when he has his hands on her thighs He hates the kids, but he works on the Kobayashi Maru and and Pike as she's writhing over him he just tries to recruit kids who aren't going to bend over and hold their ankles for the Starfleet brass. Someone who might be a challenge to Spock, because There's nowhere but here, and that's scary. It'sterrifying. Because if he the day Spock finds whoever the fuck he's looking for? loses herand it's practically in their job descriptions that one of them is going to go down. Yeah, that'll be a good day. And then Archer calls. It distracts him, a little, from realizing that he's forty six and it's been five Well, to be fair, he's been out for ten years at that point, and neither of them years and here he is. Still on Earth. has managed to stay dead (they have died, though. She's died eleven 14. times. He's not thinking about it). "You whistle really loud." Phil's about ready to retire, maybe, but other than that, they're doing pretty He's draped over the table, bleeding, his eyes are rolling in his head and damn well. he's drunk, but the kid still manages to comment on Chris's ability to whistle. And then Chris realizes that there's something familiar about that face. "It's getting worse," Archer says. "The captains are getting worse." "The kid what's his name?" he asks the bartender, who's looking around "I don't know what you want me to" he starts, but it's a lie, he knows with disgust after everyone else beats a hasty retreat. This is going on what's coming. Starfleet's dime, Chris can feel it coming. "Just five years, Pike. Take five years, come back to the Academy, help us "Jimmy? 'S Jim Kirk, he's he's probably fine, but we got a regenerator out straighten out the curriculum and thenI'll give you the Enterprise, Chris. back, you want it." He chuckled. "Mostly just for him. Jimmy's a fuckin' piece Pick your own crew, hell, you can groom your own crew down here. It's of work." getting worse. We've got bureaucrats instead of captains half the time." "He's who?" "I'll have to " "Chris. I'm not really asking." "I understand, sir." "I'll see you when you dock. Archer out." He looks at her over the video con. "I'm not going to ask you to" Stay. He's not going to ask her to stay on Earth, which isn't her home planet. He's not going to ask her to be stagnant, not when she's so happy out in the black. "I will take a diplomatic tour," she says. "That will put me in constant contact with Starfleet." "You don't" "Jim Kirk? You know Winona?" the bartender asks, squinting. "I'll take the regenerator." He cradles Jim against his chest, staring at his bloodied up face, fixing the worst of it. He can'tit's not processing. In the background the bartender is kicking the rest of the patrons out, and after ten minutes Jim blinks at him idly, then looks over at the bartender. "A.J., I'm gonna need a drink," he decides in that raspy, still-strangled sounding voice. He pulls out of Chris's grasp like it's not weird that a complete stranger was doing that, sticks two napkins up his nose, and then sprawls in a chair and Jesus Christonce you know who he is, it's obvious. He looks so much like Georgehis eyes are bluer, maybe, and he'sprettier than George was, but he's obviously George's kid.

Chris sits down across from him while Jim tries to wiggle one of his canines, making a faceignoring Chris entirely. It's like someone bodyswapped Winona and Georgehe looks like George but he acts like Winona. Not quite, though. He's disaffecteda James Dean or a Holden Caulfield a Jack Kerouac or a Dean Cassidy. Listless; a delinquent with a rap sheet taller than Pikepetty shit from a too-bored kid stuck in a contained space, unable to get out of his own fucking way. Chris triestries to appeal to something in him; use a trick he might use on Winona. Jim Kirk laughs at him as he walks out of the bar. He's not on the shuttle in the morning. Chris tries not to feel like he's failing George, somehow. And it's fucked up, because he hasn't thought about what he owes George or the way he's living because George gave him the gift of that andit's been a long time since he's thought about George so sharply. 15. Number One is intrigued by the depiction of Jim Kirk, but reminds him that when he met Sam Kirk a few years back he was almost the same way. A student, and making something of himself, perhaps, but that same defensive surliness. Chris thinks about it and decides that no, that was nothing like Jim. And then it's the anniversary of the day the Kelvin went down and he goes to the bar to share silent shots with Winona, because it's a fucked up tradition but it's a tradition, goddamnit.

detached facts, and then move on. What do you say about someone who only ever asked to go to the site of a future genocide? "Jimmy's the proverbial horse," she says after letting the silence go uncomfortableWinona's good at that, setting everyone ill at easeswirling the shot around and watching it spill against the dark wood of the bar. "Can lead him to water but can't make him drink." "How'd he?" He wants to know how Jim survived, because that's not in any of the reports. "Kodos took him. Jimmy wanted to go, and George's cousins were going to go but didn't pass the physical, and I'd been on that committeeyou remember, the one where it was a split vote to even give the fucker a moon." "I remember." He also remembers that she voted to give him the moon. "So Jimmy was begging and I thought it'd do him good to get out of Iowa, away from Frank," she spits the name. Chris wonders if there's a grave in Iowa bearing Frank's name. "So I let him. Kodos had him in his house, fostered him. Then I don't get a wave back and I knew something was wrong and" she trails off and grins, crooked and sharp. "You know the rest." He does. He remembers getting word that had Winona hijacked a cruise ship and led the charge. Remembers images of a slight boy with violently angry blue eyes. He'd been in deep space, but they'd all felt the ripples of it: some of his people had been related to the settlers of Tarsus IV. "So he stays in Iowa."

"Stays in Iowa," she agrees, then shrugs, spreads her fingers, rifles them through the hair she keeps shaggy. "Except he's here, now. Bar down on "So I hear you met Jim," Winona says, planting her forearms on the bar next Filmore." She nods in the general direction of the bar and downs her second to him. She's in worn jeans and a leather coat and a shirt that would shot. "I wouldn't try again." probably work on a woman twenty years younger than heroh, who's he "What?" kidding, it works on her. He didn't know she was on Earthhe has no idea how she knows about what happened seven months ago: he didn't get the "You asked him to join up, didn't you? Dared him, tried to treat him like he's idea that Jim was in communication with his mother. got my pride or George's sense of duty." She's mocking now, sharp edges in a face that could be kindif she was knocked out or dead. Mocking and "So, Sam goes to college young, is making a name for himself, hard the way she was when she'd looked at him, just a bit of nothing taking andJim?" a shine to her husband because he was kind. A nice guyGeorge had "Drinks himself into a coma, most days," she agrees, throwing back a shot been a nice guy. No one expected him to cheat on his wife, not least and then looking at him, defiant and a little amused, though the shape of her because she would have killed him dead and hung him from the cafeteria smile cuts like a Cardassian knife. ceiling by his balls if he had. George had called her "sweetheart" without a hint of irony; Chris wants to know, even now, what the fuck George saw in "He's" He doesn't know how he wants to finish the sentence, but he looked up Jim's file and saw his transcripts and the things he could be doing Winona. "Did he laugh at you?" are endless. He's a genius, smarter than Winona and George and hell, he "Scoffed. Reminds me of you." might even give Spock a run for his money, at least mathematically. "Aw, Chris, now you're flattering me." He also saw the mandatory psych evals and holy mother of god does Jim "You're not worried?" He doesn't have kids. He can't empathize. But he Kirk have a problem with authority. He can also outthink the tests, because doesn't get ithow she can just let Jim do this to himself. tests that should be drastically varied come out with oddly similar results. "Of course I'm worried." She barks a laugh. "But he's here, and he's friends "Don't," she snorts. "You're going to say he's wasting his potential. That I with doctor or a cadet or whatever McCoy calls himself. Who knows, Chris. should make him enlist or some bullshit." You might get an officer out of him at this rate." She pauses, looking at the "Yes." shot glass she's been idly playing with. "And that? That scares me shitless." "Fuck you, Chris." She never yells when she's angryhe remembers She leaves, and he pays the tab, the way he always seems to end up doing. watching her after Kodos and it's like she goes straight through pissed and into psychotically calm. Now she just grins slightly. "You know the only thing The thing about Winona Kirk is that she's a bitch, but you can't help being a little bit awed by her. Jim ever asked me for?" 16. "What?" Chris likes McCoy, and that's how he gets exposed to Jim. Not the drunk "To go to Tarsus." sullen kid who'd leapt into a bar fight and then kept drinking, but the sober everyday version of Jim Kirk. It makes him want to give McCoy a medal. There's nothing to say to that. Tarsus is something that Terrans don't talk about and even Vulcans only mention in a carefully scientific community respecting the need to grieve and move on. To take the lesson, boil it to the

He wants McCoy to be his CMO on the Enterprise, because that guy knows what he's doing, and he's not afraid to do it. A bit gruffer than Phil, but Chris just likes the sonovabitch. They do drinks every so often, and Chris will wander into the campus hospital and McCoy will be on duty. It's amazing to see him go soft and gentle with patients who are actually sick. People who get hurt because it's their own faultcadets, mostlyor people with alcohol poisoning, those people McCoy barks at and is terrible to. But kids with broken arms and the genuinely sick get reassuring smiles and gentle hands. Even his voice moderates. He uses that voice on Kirk, sometimes. Jim Kirk will be slouched against a building looking tired and instead of bawling him out Chris will hear that soft tone full of gentle reprimand as he walks by on his way to a meeting or a class. Winona was wrong, Chris thinks. McCoy's not going to get Jim Kirk into the sky. After that, Chris doesn't really think anything of it until Spock comes into his office a year later and says, "You knew George Kirk." "Yes." He has no idea where this is going, but Spock'll get there. Maybe he's going to do one of his random theses on it. Spock does that: write thesis and dissertation papers for fun. "And Winona Kirk." "Spock." "Jim Kirk just completed three of the mathematical puzzles I leave on my board." "I see." Chris wants to know why Jim was even in a classroom, but that's not the point, clearly, because Spock looksvery focused. "He is not a contractor." "Doesn't want to be and his list of convictions keeps him from being hirable, even though he is a Kirk." "If I can convince him to enlist" "I'll eat my hat." "You are not wearing a headpiece, and I believe you would be unable to digest it were you to achieve masticating it."

"He is bored easily," Spock replies. "I provide him with PADDs, he does the work on them, I take them back." "I'll be damned," he says, and then has to chuckle, because Spock is a genius. "All right, Spock. You figure out a way to get him into Starfleet and I'll back you." He doesn't expect it to happen, not really, which is stupid, because it's Spock and Spock is the unalterable force. Two months later he's bawling out three of his cadets for picking a fight with a civilian, even if said civilian did put all of them in the hospital and standing before a judge backing the plan to remand Jim into Spock's custody. 17. The problem with the command track, Chris knows, is that students are either beaten into submission and refuse to talk, have checked out, or are in awe of the person who's talking and refuse to dialogue out of "respect." Jim? Jim is not what you'd call a quiet student. He's also not an idiot, though he can act the part with the best of them. He doesn't believe in going down unprepared, or unarmedand when the professor snaps that it hasn't been a bad policy thus far Jim goes home, makes a graphic representation of casualties that could have been avoided if the landing party had been better prepared or even armed, and comes back to class with it. Spock and Chris field a lot of protests. Spock just wants to know, in that very logical way of is, what the problem is. Chris points out that Starfleet wants captains, not lackeys, and Jim Kirk isn't going to take any stupid orders. And the thingthe thing on top of that is that Jim Kirk is one of the nine people who saw Kodos' face and survived Tarsus IV. And he wears it on his sleeve, though Chris isn't sure any of the students identify it that way. The professors and Admiralty dowhen Jim Kirk sneers about logic and politics and tyrants it's impossible to tell him to shut up, because something in his eyes dares them to. Dares them to push him far enough to say, "I lived it, and you dicked around. I lived it, and my mother had to drag your asses to the rescue because of an unanswered message. Justify that." They can't.

So he gets a platform while they grind their teeth. Chris sits in on a policy discussion and wonders if Spock put him on the wrong track: if Jim Kirk "It's an idiom, Spock. It means I don't think it's gonna happen." Which Spock shouldn't be in the line to be a senator, or maybe president. might know. Chris is never sure where Spock actually stands on speaking "You should come to dinner," he tells Jim after class lets out. "Meet Number Terran. He's a gifted xenolinguist: he probably knows exactly what it all One." means and he's just fucking with them all. "You call your wife Number One?" "But if I do succeed. You are intimately aware of his situation." "We're not married," Chris says. "Regulations and all." "Where are you going with this, Spock?" Because he's not 'intimately "But you live together." aware' of Jim's 'situation'he has no idea what the fuck Spock's talking about. "It's amazing what Starfleet will overlook." "I am willing to be his academic advisor but I did not take the command track courses, and he may need assistance I am unable to provide." "That's a few years off, Spo" he trails off, because Spock's just given him a PADD that shows Kirk, James Tiberius testing out of the first two years of Starfleet. "What the hell?" "He tests within the 99th percentile on average in mathematics, 90th in histories. He is conversant in a dozen languagesthey are the rudimentary and slang versions of those languages, but that is easily remedied." "He's not enrolled, Spock." "Indeed." "So why am I holding a PADD with his tests?" Number One lifts her eyebrow when he tells her that Jim Kirk is going to come to dinner next week. "I have two weeks of shore leave," she points out. "You're so curious you can't stand it," he snorts. 18. They like each other immediately, even though Jim skirts around the issue of calling her anything by going midwestern and "ma'am"ing it up. Dinner istake out. Becausewell, Chris still can't really cook and Number One is okay withreplicators. Sometimes. When she's resisted the urge to tamper with them. But Jim launches them into a conversation about minding colonies easily, refusing to be intimidated by the whole situation and Chris just grins at them

both as they argue about he merits of monitoring the colonies as opposed to Pike walks away, shuts the door to his office, and rubs his face because allowing them to thrive on their own, independent of the Federation's core that's just going to be one of those situations that either blows up in planets and cultures. Which, Kirk argues, are really Terran, because Vulcan everyone's face orno. It's going to blow up. It's just a question of when. isn't in the business of exporting its culture. When he gets home he video comms Number One, who doesn't like it one "They should be allowed to grow as naturally as possible," Number One bit. insists. "It's taking advantage of his position of authority." "Bullshit. They're settled by people from planets already assimilated by the Federation, they're in the Federation by default; why shouldn't we monitor them? We fund the expeditions; we should protect the investment." "Your experience of Tarsus IV clouds your judgment," she says mildly. "I'm pretty sure Jim can handle himself. He's of the age of consent on every planet in the Federation, the kid's probably been having sex since he was " he breaks off, because it doesn't bear thinking about "anyway."

"It's still highly inappropriate." "Informs it," he replies, leaning back in his chair; it's a defensive slouch, but "I" more than that it's the "I'm about to be seriously pissed off and fuck your shit "I would like to speak to Commander Spock on this topic." up" slouch. Chris doesn't know what his life's come to that he's identifying Jim's posture in detail. "Oh my god, no, Number One" She considers. "I suppose that's an appropriate distinction. And the vein of "I believe we can come to an understanding." argument relating to funding and investments is very logical. I have not "I what?" prepared a counter argument for it as no one has raised it yet." "Jimmy, don't go into politics," Chris groans, drinking his beer and chuckling. She doesn't end up making that comm, but only because Vulcan goes up in a distress beacon and he's on the ship with these kids who leave on the Mostly because he's pretty sure he'd be president for life or something. parking brake and It's the first time he calls Jim "Jimmy" without realizing it. And then he's reliving the Kelvin, and when he looks at Spock and makes "He is an appropriate surrogate child," Number One decides at the end of him captain and makes Jim acting captain he wonders if, now that Spock's the night, after Jim's gone back to his dorm. "We should send him money on broken George's record of being the youngest captain in Starfleet history, his date of birth and invite him for holidays." he'll also follow in George's footprints and die to save them all. "I know it's been twenty years, and I should be used to you saying things He hopes not. It's why Spock is captain and not JimJim will someday like that," Chris sighs, opening another beer, "but I'm so not ready for Jim will be amazing, but Jimmy's not someone Chris wants to try by fire. fatherhood." Besides, he needs Jim down on the ground with Sulu and Olsen. "I believe you have inadvertently signed up for it," she replies. "And you are And then he's hostage, and praying that somewhere out there Jim and more suited than I am to motherhood. I am not sufficiently" she trails off, Spock are getting ready to kick this bastard's ass. searching for the term, "soft." Fucking Romulans. Which, really, should have prepared him, but when he gets home from 20. classes the next day and realizes she's reading Love You Forever, by He tells them everything. Robert Munsch he can't even process. He tells Nero about George, about his crush on him, about Winona. "This is an awful book," he informs her. "It makes parents cry. Do not use this as a parenting guide." Tells him all about Number One, about her face and about the fact that he's sure she's going to kick his ass at some point for being a dick; tells him Jim comes over to dinners at least once when Number One is dirtside, which is every few months or so. He's skittish about itlike he's trying not to about growing up in the Mojave Desert, about his childhood spent staring at overstay his welcome, somehow, and it makes Chris want to punch Winona the sky and riding horses and learning how to put ships together and his brothers and his parents. in the face. Just a little. Tells them, in detail, about the Kelvin. Talks around Jim and Spock, about 19. his years at the Academy. About how much he hates being landlocked. He starts to get a little suspicious of Spock and Jim's relationship when he sees them in the practice rooms. Jimmy'd said they practiced on Thursdays He learned this lesson the hard way, back when he was much younger: you and did drinks on Sundays (Jim plies Spock with hot chocolate and just keep on talking. He's not equipped to be taciturn, but he can do wry, mudslides, apparently), and Chris has time and is curious and holy mother and weary, and it's not babbling, it's just talking. of It's not pain, not he's been tortured: flayed, fingernails pulled out. Spock is throwing Jim like a rag doll against the wall. Jim slides down, He's even had his brain messed with, but this isdifferent. It's like he can laughs gets up, and charges. see everything seeping away; his defenses viscous and sliding down off of Because he's insane. the information he's trying so hard to hold onto. He gets a few punches in, but more impressively he avoids getting hit. The He tells them the codes. fight goes on because even if Spock's stronger, Jim learns very quickly. He doesn't tell them about Jim or Spock. Doesn't tell them that they're going And Spock is teaching him, slowed down to 80% speed, maybe, to to die, because his boys are amazing. demonstrate, but it ends with Jim flat on his back, pinned under Spock with They don't ask, and that's interesting. They never ask him, "Is there anyone Spock's hand wrapped around his neck and the other pinning his free arm who could fuck this up for us?" to the mat (his right arm is trapped at an awkward angle under his back), and Chris doesn't even know. It occurs to him that that question wouldn't present itself to most people. It's a little thing, the way Jim shifts his hips just so that take it from two guys That long exposure to Jimmy and Spock have completely warped his idea of what important questions are. sparring to foreplay in 0.02 seconds.

21. He doesn't know what to do with the fact that Spock pulled a George Kirk. It was Jim's ideaJim owns up to it, laying on his couch and drinking the beer that Number One hands him when he walks in the door three weeks after they've all been on Earth, after one of the inquiries that Chris remembers so well from the Kelvin. No one ever doubted it to be Jim's idea, not really. But Spock did it, and Chris doesn't know how to protect Spock from that: from his own suicidal impulses or his frankly terrifying trust in Jim. Chris doesn't know how to protect Spock from Jim, and so it's almost (but not quite) a relief when Spock doesn't immediately sign on. They elevate him to Admiral. He wants to punch someone in the face for it. He doesn't want to be landlocked, not while she's in the sky. He doesn't want to ride a desk. Starfleet was never about He's fifty-three and an Admiral, and it's impressive and sucks. He gives Jim the ship because who the fuck else is he going to give it to? And if he has to be landlocked, then he's going to be at least on the side of one captain up there, and he figures Jim's probably going to need someone on his side dirtside. Chris doesn't exactly see Jim's next five years going smoothly. The only thing that makes him nervous isn't anything that will stop him: it's just he doesn't want to sign Jim's death certificate. Which is why he gets progressively more annoyed with Spock, who is holding out for what? Yes, his planet is gone, and Chris can't empathize with that, but he doesn't see Spock being happy anywhere but Chris knew Spock before Jim, and saw him waiting around for something more. And then there was Jim, and Chris doesn't want to oversimplify things butthe two of them are a set. Spock should know that. Thing is, Jim might be able to do it without Spock. He learns quickly, reapplies that knowledge in new and interesting ways. Like the Kobayashi Maru. Jim's the only person to take it three times: the only person to believe it could be beaten even after taking it once. And Jim came at it at a weird angle, in the endcame at it sideways, or from underneath: redefined the parameters. The challenge wasn't the scenario itselfthe rescue of the Kobayashi Maru. The challenge had been the entire simulation. Jim had beaten the test, if not the scenario. Jim thinks broadly; he doesn't narrow in. Pike had seen Spock's report on the code Jim had inserted into the programming: it had been simple. Jim just the kid just sees things so differently than the rest of them. And it's unorthodox and terrifying but it might be what they all need.

The Enterprise is late to check in with whether it's okay to send the diplomatic team to Udalia VIII. Sulu's the one who answers, which means both Kirk and Spock are down on the planet, and Scotty is somewhere in the background swearing up a storm. Sulu cuts the transmission short with a terse, "We have the situation under control." Forty-eight hours later Sulu checked in to say that Udalia VIII was no longer inhabited. No one has any idea what to do with that. He pieces it together from the reports: Spock is carefully within all the parameters, but it's edited. Uhura's command of language is such that she can say exactly what happened and make it sound like something else entirely. Sulu's reports are sketched off and short, except when he's acting captain, and then they seem oddly precise. Jim's reports give even Chris a migraine, and he was there for Jim's school years. Jim? Uses fucking footnotes. What happened was that the Udalis did genetic testing, and it went bad for a significant portion of the population. They were amped up super-humanoids, stronger than Vulcans (he gets that from McCoy's report about how bad Spock was), and apparently carnivorous, but intelligent. The landing party had been stuck, and hurt, and it had taken a day for Kirk to get to the point where he could rig together a communication system in the old ruins of the Udali capital to talk to Scotty, and then another day for them to keep the Udali back far enough to get beamed back up to theEnterprise without taking any Udali with them. That's just what happened: the basic facts, although from experience he can say that he would not have been able to do thatthat he's not sureWinona could have dealt with that situation. That's that's the definition of FUBAR, even before he gets to what went ultimately wrong. Which was that Spock was infected, and McCoy and Jim had banded up to kill him, revive him and put him into a medical coma, and then basically burn the infection out of his system. McCoy had acted as baitpossibly because he and Spock don't like each otherand Jim had been the one with his phaser set to "kill." Chris doesn't say anything: hopes it's an aberration. It's not. The next time, Jim is dead for thirteen minutes before McCoy can revive him.

"You proud?" he asks Winona. It's another year, another set of shots, and he's curious. He's walking againit's weird, because they're not his nerves, Jim solved the Kobayashi Maru by making it about the test, and not the it's artificial and robotics, but he's walking and he can feel, and his brain scenario. Jim saved Earth by making it about Nero, and not Earth and the doesn't know the difference, and what the fuck, he can run, so he's putting Federation and Vulcan. Destroying a ship is more easily accomplished than saving a world. Manipulating a test is more easily accomplished than solving this in the win column. the scenario. "Someday I'll kill you when you sleep," she replies. Put like that it seems lazier, but it's not, not really. It's a different kind of focusing; his brain works differently, but it works. Chris would be dead and Earth destroyed if not for Jim, and Chris knows it. He's a lot less worried, when he thinks about it like that. He's even less worried when Spock finally agrees to join. Cut it a bit close, there, son. 22. Then, of course, they get the Udalis, three months into the run. That's a yes. It's become more about Jim's birthdaymourning George but thank fuck it's another year Jim's not dead in the ground. There's never chit-chat, and he always comes home and sits, staring up into the black sky and praying to a deity he doesn't believe in not to let it happen to his people. Not Number One, and not Jim. He gets lucky, there. Sweetheart waldorph

Summary: "Licensed to kill," Winona agreed, grinning. "Oh, hey, pizza." "An assassin with ADD," George muttered, and sat on the couch to begin his paper. (underage features consensual sex between 15-year-olds) Notes: It's my birthday, I'll post fic if I want to. (See the end of the work for more notes) Work Text: 2231.273 [9/30/31; age 27] The air, George reflects, has a certain addictive quality. It's highly oxygenated, and almost metallic. It almost forces you to take deeper and deeper breaths as your brain attempts to figure out what's wrong with it. George has been here for fifteen days. He has yet to figure out how not to give himself a headache within the first fifteen minutes of entering the Isolated Intensive Care Unit of Starfleet Medical: San Francisco. It's such a stupid, pedantic thing to notice, but he's feeling a little out of control, and having fucked up air isn't really helping him keep his shit together. Right now, he's sitting in the nice, ergonomic chair beside her bed, watching the medical equipment monitor the lack of change. At least the brain scans aren't spiking in agitation. She's sleeping peacefully. When he came in this morning, Ren (the day nurse) had said she'd managed to go 24 hours now without screaming. George shifts. It's not sleeping, and it's not peaceful. It's medically-induced coma. He rests his elbow on the chair and braces his chin in his hand, the other loosely wrapped around his PADD. There are a few shiny patches of brand new skin, but she's like Snow White in her coffin of glass: protective environment where the skin they'd had to slice off could regrow unhindered and uncontaminated. "It's too infected," Kasab had explained. Miko Kasab was her attending: helping to marshal all of the care and specialists. "We had to remove the damaged and infected tissues, but it looks much worse than it is. Her immune system is compromised, so it will take a while for it all to grow back: she'll look strange, but we'll have her medicatedshe won't feel it, Commander Kirk." George had nodded, and then gone into one of the conference rooms, sat down in one of the chairs, and cried, and then punched a hole in the wall. He glances over: the plaster's a little rough, right there. Shoddy workmanship. "Son?" George jumps: he hadn't even heard Pop come in. "Hey, Pop." He stands with a groan and presses a hand to his lower back as he puts the PADD on the seat of his chair. He's been sitting too long: not enough room to pace. He'll go for a run in a bit, then maybe get a massage. Pop wraps his arms around him, and under the sterile smell of hospital, he smells like the aftershave he's worn George's whole life, shoulders comfortingly broad even though they're under the soft, giving fabric of scrubs instead of his usual worn and pilled flannel shirts or worn-through tees. He looks good for 53. Hell, he probably looks better than George. Pop doesn't let go, and George feels a flash of impatience. He doesn't need this comfort; doesn't want it. Not right now. He's grateful his parents came out from Riverside to San Francisco as soon as the crew of the USS Black Hawk were evacuated off the remnants of the ship and rushed off to Starfleet Medical. They moved into George and Winona's apartment to watch Sammy so George could focus on Winona's care 24/7. It was great of them: Sammy didn't get uprooted this wayit put the least amount of strain on the two year old.

"How's she doing?" Pop asks. His tone says he's trying not to be sympathetic, because George has never really been good at taking pity or symptathy even when it's offered with the best of intentions, but he looks at Winona and the lines in Pop's face deepen. "The new pain cocktail seems to be working. They'retrying to simulate a Vulcan healing trance, and I have no idea how that's going, but she's not screaming, soI don't know. Theory is that if her brain doesn't know how bad her body is, it willlessen the stress and adrenaline levels, which will boost her natural immune system. It made sense when Kasab was explaining it," George sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. Pop nods, his hand resting on George's shoulder. "Well, I brought you food. It's in the family room on the third floor, got your name on it and everything. Real food, not this replicated shit that passes as food here in San Francisco. How's it going with insurance?" "Perks of being in Starfleetwe're covered. And Starfleet sent a clerk down to inform me that I have compassionate leave until she returns to active duty, which is good because I was due to ship out in two months, and I don't know how long this is going to take." He's talking to the spot over Pop's shoulder. It's easier, somehow. "And I still don't know what the hell happened up there." Pop smiles slightly. "How's Sam?" George asks, guiding him back out of the IICU and into the hall. "Sammy's doing good. Asking about you. Thinks you're in the other room every time you stop conferencing he goes and looks." George smiles, but it doesn't last. He's going to get premature wrinkles. Of course, he's been saying that for twenty years now, and always blaming it on her, but this time he's serious. And gray. He's going to find gray hairs not from his kid but from his wife. He should have fucking known. "Anyway, he's an easier kid than you were." "I was fine," George protests. He might have been an only child, but he was a fine kid. When he wasn't being incited to riot. And that came later. Kind of. "Until you turned five," Pop agrees, eyes twinkling. "That wasn't my fault," George says, grinning tiredly, because it's an old conversation, well-worn grooves for words he doesn't even have to think about to say. Even still it feels fucking weird, and he puts his hands in his pockets. "Talk to me about Sammy. He like the zoo?" "Gorillas made him sad," Pop says, shrugging. "He liked the penguins, but mostly he loves watching the whales." "Gonna take him to the aquarium tomorrow?" "Thought we might. Kids love fish. And dolphins." George smiles. "He loves the umthey have like, a tank in the middle, that the building is sort of wrapped around? So it goes all five stories high. He likes that. And touching the sting rayshe thinks that's pretty cool." "Sting rays, got it." Pop rubs his shoulder, and George leans into the touch slightly. "She's gonna be fine. And then she's gonna kill people." "Yeah. That's what I keep reminding myself." They hug, and George forces his arms to unlock. He's not a kid. He can't just cling. "You know I just spent four months almost getting thrown out of Starfleet?" he asks her. "I thought they were going to bust my ass down to ensign. And now you're back and I haveno idea what happened." She doesn't move, not even a flicker of movement under her eyelids.

"Yeah. I thought I'd raise some hell too," he agrees, and settles down to set up a few meetings. 2209.192-193 [7/11/09-7/12/09; age 5] George was an only child. His pop worked at the quarry, his mother ran the scrapbooking club and the PTA and worked part time at the library. It was life in a small town. He didn't really understand what the drama around Jenny Bunting washe knew she was very beautiful, tall with long blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes. She was the most beautiful woman in the town, but he knew that people didn't like her. His mother didn't like her. But he knew that once in a while they'd go over to Jenny Bunting's house and drop off a cake. They never went inside. So when Mama came home and pulled out a cake, George assumed it was normal. He climbed into the car and got buckled into his seat, and watched the trees and houses fly by the window as Mama tapped her steering wheel and sighed at nothing in particular. It was the sigh of "Oh, here we go." The sigh that signaled somewhere a fight was going to start. The Buntings' house needed paint. The grass wasn't mowedalmost long enough that George could hide in it. He stuck close to her legs, and the steps and the porch boards squeaked under his bare feet. He cried out when a sliver dug into the soft arch of his foot. "Come on, honey," Mama said, and knocked on the door. George sat down on the splintered and brittle boards and pulled a gigantic piece of wood out of his foot. Huge. No one answered the door. "Jenny?" Mama called. "Jenny, you home?" She knocked three more times, and then waited. And then repeated. "Jenny?" Knock-knockknock "Jenny?"Knock-knock-knock "Jenny?" Knock-knock-knock. And then, from somewhere deep inside the house, was an almighty crashing sound like something really big falling over and shattering. Mama shoved the door open and ran in. "Jenny? Winona? Is anyone?" In the kitchen there was a mess on the floor, and a barefoot girl George's age. She had hair the color of straw and was wearing a white sun dress. She had freckles all over her face, which was red. In her hand was a pile of plates. She slammed those on the ground too. George hid behind Mama as Mama yelled, "Winona Bunting, you stop that this minute!" "No!" Winona Bunting shouted back. "Jenny!" Mama yelled. "She's gone," Winona informed her, stamping her foot. It was bleeding. Her legs were bleeding tooall these little cuts. She pulled a mug off the counter and hurled it at them. "Ow!" George yelled, rubbing his chest. "Stop that!" "You're not the boss of me!" "That's a bad job," he yelled back, and put on the flip flops that someone had kicked off (must have been her, because they were only a little bit small for his feethe was growing) and then walked over the broken dishes and shoved her in the chest before Mama could stop him. "Do you understand me?" "No!" she shouted, and shoved him back. "Oh, for crying out loud," Mama groaned, and grabbed both of them by the arms and carried them to the living room. "Winona, you just sit there until I get your daddy home. George you justno fighting. Honestly," she

muttered to herself, and pulled out her phone, moving into the dining room to yell at Winona's daddy. "I hate you," Winona informed him. "Well I think you're mean," he said, and stuck out his tongue, standing over by the window at the front of the room so he wouldn't push her again. "I am mean," she replied. "Fine." "Fine." "Fine." "Fine." "FINE!" And then she did something he didn't really expect. She sat down on the floor in front of the couch on the dirty carpet and put her face in her knees and screamed. George stood, frozen. No onedid that before. Around him. And he could see her underpants between her feet because her legs were bent up and She was crying now. Just crying and crying and crying and crying. Like she couldn't breath. Like she couldn't stop. And Mama was still talking on the phone in the other room, so George sat beside her and touched her shoulder carefully because she hit, and maybe she was just gonna hit him again. And then he wrapped his arms around her and she ended up somehow kinda crying into his neck. And it was hot outside, and her breath was really hot and wet and he was sweating, all sticky on his back as he rubbed her back and shoulders, like Pop and Mama did when he had to cry. "It's okay," he said softly, because that's what you say to crying people. "It's okay, sweetheart. It's okay." "Sweetheart" was what his pop called his mama when she was really upset. She couldn't hear him, he didn't think. Over the sound of her crying. But he just held on and maybe cried a little without knowing why, it justit was really sad. Pain bloomed hot on his neck, sharp and hot and throbbing, but he didn't reallythink to look. He was busy trying to make her stop crying so she could breathe. When Mama came out she said Mr. Bunting was on his way back, and George didn't think that Winona heard. When Mr. Bunting came through the door he looked horrified at the mess, and George heard him saying, "I didn't know, Anne! She didn't say anything, just smiled at meyou know, left for the weekend'course you know, it's Riverside, everyone fucking knowsbut she came back last night and it was fine. How the fuck was I supposed to know she was gonna fucking bail on us?" George didn't understand, not really. But Winona wouldn't let her dad get close and George didn't mind being so hot if it means she wasn't alone. He still wasn't sure what was going onbut she shouldn't be alone. Mama went into the kitchen to clean up, and some of the other ladies came over and sighed and clucked and did stuff to make the house better, and Jim Bunting sat down in a chair looking like he couldn't see anything. But when it was time for everyone to go, he got up and picked Winona up. She was asleep: being that sad and that angry made you really sleepy: George knew that from experience. Then Mr. Bunting put his hand to George's neck, kind of where it turned into his shoulder. "You okay?" he asked.

George frowned, and put his own hand there. It stung a little, and there were "I'll call Nora, see if she can get a replicator installed at the house at a scabby flakes that wereblood. reduced price, or on credit. Rotten thing to do." "Yeah," George said. "I don't know" Mr. Bunting nodded. "Thanks for coming over," he said, and then walked up creaking stairs to put her to bed. Mama drove him home and put him to sleep after cleaning up the bite mark on his neck. For years, this will be a source of great pride and admiration. At the time, he kind of wondered if she was like a rabid squirrel or something. Mama looked sad, and hugged him longer than usual, and George slid into bed and thought about his mama leaving them without telling. He thought he'd be too busy crying to break things: he would have probably called his pop right away. That's what you did in emergencies: called a grown-up. If Mama hadn't gone over to visit Mrs. Bunting Winona probably would have been in the house all alone until her pop showed up. He wondered why she didn't: maybe Winona didn't like her pop. And then the screen in his window got kicked in and he almost died of fright because maybe monsters were real. But it was only Winona Bunting, who crawled into bed with him. "I'm sleeping here," she said. "Okay," he agreed, slowly, and pulled the sheet over them. She looked really sad, and it was weird that she was here, but she'd had a long day and maybe she really didn't get along with her daddy. "Maybe we'll have pancakes in the morning." And she smiled, just a little. "That'd be nice. I like pancakes." "Everybody loves pancakes," he sighed, because duh. But it made her laugh a little, so that was okay. In the morning, Mama blinked and Pop called Mr. Bunting, but Mama made pancakes and Winona stole George's because she was mean. "Do you have to be so understated?" "What, you just condemned a little girl for overreacting, I'm afraid." George looked at Winona, whose eyes were red and wide and whose lower lip was trembling. "You bit me," he accused, pointing at his neck. "Like an animal." She stuck her tongue out. "Did not." "Did too!" He stared at her indignantly, and she grinned, just a little. "Mama, we're going to go play outside!" he called, grabbing her hand and pulling her behind him out the front door and into the corn fields where the stalks were way over their head. "What if we get lost?" she asked after they collapsed in the dirt, breathing hard from running fast. "I know this place like the back of my hand," he told her, because that's what Pop always said. They got lost. Pop looked like he wanted to laugh when he found them, covered in dirt and wild-eyed in the middle of the cornfield. "This is all your fault," George whispered. He'd be saying that for the rest of his life. 2231.280 [10/7/31; age 27] "Went that well?" Ren asks when George walks back into her room. "What?" "You're a little" Ren trailed off and waived his hand up and down. "Pissed, I think is the word."

George huffed out a laugh. "Yeah. I hate hitting dead ends." In the other room Mama was telling Pop what happened, and George and Winona didn't mean to overhear, but sound travelled. And they both stopped Ren checked a few monitors and then turned to look at him. "What's up?" eating and sort of leaned towards the living room to hear. "Nothing. Bad day at the office." "She came back from God-knows-where the night before, acted like it was Ren nods, and slips out, and George sits in his chair. They want to turn it all fine, you know, the way Jenny does," Mama was saying. "And then he into a story about the triumph of spirit in adversity. They want it to be a went off to work and I guess she flew the coop. I only went over to make sure there was food in the refrigerator because Lord knows the man has no recruitment poster. Of 400 person crew, 11 survived. And there are no clear answers. idea how to cook and that little girl's a hellion. You should have seen her, Tiberius. They're going to be living off of a grand total of one glass, a coffee She doesn't look better. The medicine's keeping her nice and quiet, and skin mug, one dinner plate and one dessert. The silverware she didn't seem to is starting to grow back slowly, but they keep on cutting it away and then be able to destroy, so there's plenty of that." using the regenerators, worried about the infection that was killing her. Based on the burns and wounds, they figure she was just down in the "Wait, she up and left the kid?" engine room using her bare hands to fix things, coaxing warp out of a shot "Emptied the account, too. Nolan got ahold of his husband, and Ted's going engine and core. But it took four months, and she didn't eat much("severely to help Jim put a hold on all the accounts and make sure she can't wipe out malnourished and dehydrated" was the official phrasing), and he doesn't Winona's college fund, but she hopped the world. No one knows where it know what it was, exactly that happened. was to: Ted said there was a charge to a taxi, right to San Francisco, and And he goes to Starfleet and getsstonewalled. then she bought a ticket up to space dock and well. From there, who knows?" He's about two days from breaking through the firewall and security, and after he punched the shit out of a bag in the gym he's back here breathing in "Jenny's always skipping out." too-clean air, still pissed off and scared as fuck. "She took everything, Tiberius. Everything. The worst part is that she told Research vessel his ass. Winona. Told her she wasn't ever coming back. Didn't care if Winona starved. God, that girl's insane, though. Too much like her mother." She looks sunken in, corpse-like. Fragile. She's strong and she's fast, and she once made a Cardassian cry (no, he still has no idea what happened. "She's five, Anne." He walked across the green to be almost bowled over by this sobbing "She bit George. So hard he's going to scar. He didn't say anything, either, Cardassian and that triumphant look in her eye had made him not want to though I could have slapped her a little for it. He's a good boy, sat with her even know). But without the exasperation and that wry grin, he's not sure the whole time. But damnit, I could just take a shotgun to Jenny Bunting." exactly what to do with her.

"Commander Kirk?" He blinks up at Dr. Kasab. "Hey, Doc. I didn't know you were stopping by" and fuck is he hoping that this is a random visit and that she's not here to say, "Oh, she's never going to wake up." "I just got some test results back, and I wanted to tell you as soon as possible." George's throat tightens, and his hands begin to sweat. He sucks in his lips and bites for a second before swallowing and nodding. Brain damage, shit. "Her brain scans that we just got back from the labs are fine. The concussions are healed and we haven't found any new bleeding. The rashes and lesions we saw on the upper-deck crew are nowhere in sight: it's possibly due to the fact that she stayed with the engines, five decks below." Her dark face spreads into a smile. "So when she wakes up" he prompts, because he needs to now what to expectif there's a chance of amnesia due to something they would know about now, rather than just trauma which is a fun game of "wait and see!" He's not ready to smile: just because it's not brain damage doesn't mean there's not something awful just lying in wait. "She'll be your loving wife." Kasab says that earnestly, and George laughs helplessly, waving a hand when she takes a concerned step forward and glances for the nurse. "No, no. It's just when she wakes up? She's going to try to get me to let her up so she can go kill a few Admirals and possibly her captain. And then she'll be really annoyed that she's not being immediately released." He considers it, and then realizes that Kasab is now looking at Winona with some surprise. She must not talk to the ER doctors. They know Winona. She was a favorite of theirs for a while, back when they started school. "Thank you," George says, trying for earnest and not sure where he lands on that spectrum. "I'mI really appreciate you coming down here to tell me in person." "My pleasure. I'll be checking in either a week or when she's discharged, whichever comes soonest." "So I'll see you in a week." "Most likely," she agrees. The meeting with the dermatologist and the infection specialist doesn't go as well. She'd come in with lesions and staph infections, with wounds that looked like they'd been cauterized for lack of any other medical options. The doctors had had to cut away the dead tissue to regenerate healthy skin which was unusual, and made them make him sign about seventeen forms to cover their assesbut apparently there was one resistant strain.

George took command classes, and he knows how to run a ship and let people be good at what they do. He's good at that. He nods. "We'll do that. Can we localize the sonic treatment to try to mitigate some of the side effects or strain?" he asks Fox, who nods. "We can do that." The sonic treatment is a variant on how radiation was used to kill cancer cells, only these sonic pulses disrupt or kill bacteria. Or viruses, depending on what setting. She goes in for the treatment and he goes for a run until his legs are about to give out on him and his lungs are burning. It's like he wants to outrun this, which is stupid, and not really who he isor who he likes to think he is. He sighs and jogs back to the hospital, takes a shower and changes back into scrubs, lays down in the patient family room, and stares at the ceiling. They're not inseparable, not anymore. Not since coming to Starfleet and getting commissions. But the fact that she's not presentthat he can't comm her or talk to herit's making him crazy. 2219.072 [3/13/19; age 15]. The nice thing about the policing system being run by robots is that George had been able to make bail without having to be an adult. Or, rather, his fake i.d. and matching bank account had been enough to make bail since they were thirteen. George would take a moment to reflect on how nice that was if, say, he wasn't bailing her out for the second time this month. For some stupid shit, too. Trespassing. What the everloving fuck? On top of that, it was four in the morning. George was exhausted. He wanted to be in his nice bed, not walking down the depressingly familiar gray halls of the county police station. "Are you fucking with me?" he demanded. She looked at him. Her shoulders were hunched forward, which might have been a defensive pose or it might have been that she was just a bitch. Either one was entirely valid at that point. "Trespassing?" She swung her foot up onto the lip of the bench, even though the door slid open. Her head made a dull noise when it hit the wall. "Okay, get up, or I'm letting you rot in here," he warned. He was going to have a migraine: he could feel it coming. "I am sick as fuck of having to bail your ass out, or convince teachers it was an accident, or get whoever you punched that it was their own damn fault. I get it this town sucks and you hate it. Fine. Whatever. But you keep dragging me into it and hey, newsflash, I'd really like to get out of here and go to Starfleet, which I can't do with many more black marks on my official record! And here's a revelation: neither can you!"

"Didn't really see you kicking and screaming," she said flatly, shoving past "My recommendation," Dr. Pilmann, the dermatologist, says, " is that we use him and heading for the door. George made abortive frustrated gestures at sonic treatments in combination with regeneration and old school antibiotics. her back, and then tore at his hair. Maybe he needed a goddamn break. Maybe a decade was the limit: maybe he couldn't take it anymore. Maybe Hypos don't work when the patient is allergic, and her allergies are varied enough to make me want to be very cautious, especially when her system is this whole fucking epic romance that everyone had scripted out for them (around them) was justbullshit. this fragile." "You should be aware, however," Dr. Fox, an immunization specialist who was consulting, chips in, "that there are risks with sonic treatments. It might stress her system too heavily, and lengthen or deepen the coma." "But the other option is what, standard hypos that would have bad side effects?" George asks. "The hypos carry higher risks," Pilmann agrees, nodding her head. "I'm not going to lie, this is a fragile situation. Her condition is tenuous, but requires treatment. I feel that the regimen of antibiotics and sonic is the best of two not-great options." He hit the gas too hard and gripped the steering wheel too tight, driving back to her house. There was still snow on the ground: he flexed his cold hands. He hadn't grabbed a jacket or anything, just pulled on his jeans and ran out the door, because she was annoying as fuck but he didn't want her He didn't want her actually rotting in some fucking cell. He pulled into the driveway. Jim was braced against the porch, breath hanging hot and white in front of him, and it glowed in the moonlight. Winona slammed out of the car and brushed by her dad. Jim watched, the way George did, both of them stuck in her wake. And then Jim turned, and walked down the steps. George cut the engine.

"Everything okay?" Jim asked quietly. Usually, Winona slept over at his house after a break-out. George's parents didn't know: not really. They might have suspected, butit was willful ignorance. "Yeah," George said, finally. "Yeah. I gotta get home. Have to be up in two hours for school." Jim nodded, and stepped back. George feigned sick and stayed home. Okay, maybe he wasn't faking, because hey, running out in the middle of March's cold snap in jeans and an old tee apparently encouraged all the latent germs in his body to take hold all at once. He fucking hated being sick. See, the thing about Winona was that her mom leaving her scarred her. The fact that she abandoned Winona knowingly, and said as much...George knew at five that that left a mark. And a decade later she had abandonment issues a mile wide, on top of the fact that she was justcrazy. She also had this vicious, violent streak in hera part of her that couldn't see where the line for appropriate behavior was, never mind whether or not she'd crossed it. Sometimes he thought they were like Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket. He knew that part of the reason she was restless was that she wanted to see what was out there. Wanted to see what it was that her mama picked over her, and it was just because he was stubborn as all get-out that he came with. He wasn't sure where the violence came from, unless it was because she wanted to be the one to hit first. He knew that before Jenny left, Winona'd been a handful. Jim liked having someone to talk to, and George listened because Jim could fill in blanks: could help George not punch her in the face because he got where she was coming from. He knew that she kept people at a distance deliberately. He knew she pushed his buttons because she was waiting for the time he turned around and left. For good (he leaves a lot: slams out of rooms or runs across fields or storms out of barns, but he always comes back). And he knew, as he built a pile of tissues and watched bad daytime soaps, that he'd come back this time too. But the thing was, it'd been a decade. George had been in and out of principal's offices and taken aside by teachers for ten fucking years. Because they thought he had some sway. Because they knew he was in on itbut no one could prove it. Winona got caught, but George never did. George couldn't ever decide if that was because she somehow managed it that way, or if it was because people genuinely thought he was the easier target. Like, if they could convince him to behave, he'd rub off on her. But George was the one who ground his foot into her toes and made her shut up, who walked half-step behind cleaning up messes. He was the most popular boy in their class because he had to be: because people had to like him. No, that wasn't fair. He liked most of the people in their class; got along with all of them. But maybe he went the extra mile to go to movies or hang out in basements because then they came to him complaining and when he said, "Yeah, I'll talk to her" they believed him. Never mind that whatever she'd done he'd been at least 45% responsible for at any given time. Even so, knowing it didn't make him any less pissed at her for not caring. He stayed angry. For two weeks, he stayed angry, and then it was easier to juststay quiet. To hang out with Owen and Henry and pretend her desk wasn't next to his.

"What happened to my official record?" she demanded, slamming his door open a month later. Actually, 29 days, but almost a month. "What did you even do?" It was self-defense. George knew how to bullshit and hack; to take charge of a panicked situation (there had been an incident with fireworks they don't talk about that). George could lie without incriminating himself, to make it up as he went along. Things that other kids maybe tried for but George succeeded at because of Winona fucking Bunting. "I cleaned it up. A little," he said, putting the PADD aside. "You might wear it like a fucking badge of honor, but Starfleet's not gonna take you with more marks, and you're fucking going if I have to drag you by your goddamn hair because I'm not gonna get left while you die in fiery wreckage somewhere. So justshut the fuck up." He glared at her, daring her to say something else. She just looked at him. Her hair needed combing, ratty and too long, and her freckles had faded off her cheeks a little. She was vibrating in the door, and beyond her, downstairs, he could hear Mama making dinner. Chicken, by the smell of things. George pulled himself up against the headboard and bit the inside of his lower lip to keep from saying anything. He was going to wait this out, he he was. "I'm not going to die in fiery wreck," she said. George snorted, closed his eyes and hit his head against the headboard because Jesus fuck. That was so not The bed dipped slightly, and then he felt her hands curling around his knees, pushing them together so she could rest her chin on the dip. If he moved his feet he could knock her off. "Hey, George. Hey. Hey." He cracked an eye open. She was just watching him, with her gray-blue eyes. "Your mom's making good food." "I guess we could feed you," he relented, just a little, opening his other eye and sighing. "I get cranky when not fed," she agreed. "I know," he sighed, but when she curled up against him and braced her feet against the wall with her head in his lap, talking a mile a minute about some stupid political snafu, he breathed a little easier. It wasn't quite fixed. They weren't quite fixed, not yet. But they would be. It'd be fine. Or else he'd throttle her with his bare hands. 2231.283 [10/10/31; age 27] It takes him three days to get through the firewall. He's out of practice: he hasn't had to hack a security system in a long time. He pulls up the captain's logs of the Black Hawk's last run, sits in his chair while she breathes steadily. He's not sure how he feels that that's what's comforting. Fucking Christ. CAPTAIN'S LOG, Stardate 2231.074 Have failed to make contact with the Gelan Research Team. After a careful scan of the planet, this does not appear to be due to hostiles, though one must always acknowledge that there may be life forms which our sensors are not capable of picking up. The planet is stable, and yet there is no response from the GRT. Preparing to beam down a crew in order to investigate further. CAPTAIN'S LOG, Stardate 2231.077 Research facility completely abandoned. No sign of the crew anywhere, though there are signs of violence. Perhaps a struggle occurred: not one of

my team could make it out. Have collected samples for further analysis, but CMO speculates an illness of some kind was likely the cause of such complete loss. CMO has taken air and plant samples to test this hypothesis. CAPTAIN'S LOG, Stardate 2231.78 Crew under siege. There appears to have been a prior species, incorporeal, inhabiting the planet. They appear to require hosts, and need the host bodies to be dead, though not brain-dead. They are biologically designed to achieve this end. There seems to be an immunity several crew members have. Commander Kirk, notably, is unaffected. Am preparing to execute General Order 13 ACTING CAPTAIN'S LOG, Stardate 2231.87 This is Fatimah Hasan, highest ranked surviving officer. CEO Kirk engineered a pulse beacon which killed the beings calling themselves "Umani." They have not resurfaced for two days, but whether the pulse beacon or the fact that those of us surviving, 11 out of 400, are all immune to them cannot be determined for certain. Our ship is drifting in the black. We have no medical personnel. ACTING CAPTAIN'S LOG, Stardate 2231.213 Have gone to see Kirk. She is in bad condition. We are all starving and dehydrated, but the engine room's conditions are very hot and she is constantly sweating. I believe her to be running a fever, but she will not be moved. We are a week away, at our current rate of progress, from arriving at the solar system's edge where we will be sensed. We are all desperate, and look to be corpses. They will put us immediately into isolation, if we are not fit for the morgue. George sits down on the floor, because if he sits in the chair he's too close to standing, and if he stands he can walk, and if he walks he's going to go kill someone. Where the fuck was Starfleet? He grabs the PADD and does a quick search. This is the problem with Starfleet: once you're in the system, you're in the system. He could get into personnel files, history, highly classified operationsbut all he wants is thisto know out of the eleven, who were the ones who died. And then there it is, on his PADD, deceptively innocent looking: A'TAER, BEDILIAK: deceased BUCKET, CAROLINE: deceased ENTENIE, ROSE: deceased FIBBOCHI, IDINA: living GETEPP, ADALIA: living HASAN, FATIMAH: deceased KIRK, WINONA: living K'UWI, OIW: living QUEUR, ENID: deceased TOU'RKRE: living T'REIK, DAUGHTER of STROCK: deceased He realizes with a sick feeling that that leaves only four of them still alive someone else has died in the past week without anyone but the family noticing the passing. It's justwrong. Fucked up. He doesn't want blanket media coverage, but he wantsinformation. He wants this to stop reeking of a fucking cover-up. He wants Starfleet to live up to its promise of no one alone. He hasn't seen one of his COs extend anything to him. He feels like he's going this alone, and usually he'd be okay because, you know, Winona. Except she's the one down and this He wants to know what research is being done into the actual cause of the Black Hawk's problems. If the neurologist was seeing what it might have been about Winona that kept an alien from taking up residence in her brain. If Starfleet paid the neurologist to do that without getting his consent. He

wants this to stop being a conspiracy. His life is not this movie, okay? It's not. Because his theories about her being a hardass are all well and good: fine. She isthere's no denying that Winona is the strongest person he knows, that she gets the job done one way or another, and she will not yield. That's her personality: has been since they were five, for crying out loud. But it's one thing to say all of that and know it to be true and then to suspect that it had something to do with the aliens' apparent incapability to leave her braindead. He's never met Rose Entenie or T'Reik orhell, any of the ones who survived. He can't say whether they were hardasses, too. If their husbands or wives or parents would look at them and say, "Are you kidding, no alien would try to take them down. Or if they did, they'd fail. Hard." He has to go down to the cafeteria. The problem, he thinks, is that he's gotten used to being able to sit back and let her take care of shit. Be the scary one. "Umyou're Kirk?" a man asks, coming over to his table. He looks really, really tired, and sits in the chair across from George. He has the soft look of a scientist or a civilian. George isn't really in the mood. "Yeah." "I'm David Fibbochimy wife is" "One of the survivors, I know," George agrees, and relaxes his shoulders, just a little. The man swallows, and nods abortively. "Do youI mean, you're in Starfleet. Have you heardanything?" "No, I haven't been apprised of the situation." David looks at him for a minute. "Oh yeah?" "Yeah." "Look. You're the only one who's in Starfleet. You have to have some pullI looked you up, you're a commander. I mean, that means something, and you're young for a commander. I'm not trying to butter you up it's justlook. We want a hearing." "And you think I can get you a hearing?" "Our wives are dead or dying. We have just as much a right to know as you why Starfleet sat on its ass." David leans across the table, looking intent. George slouches back in his chair slightly, hands wrapped around a coffee he's not going to drink. "Not just us, either," David insists. "All of them. Everyone whose family died. We all deserve to know." "I'm not arguing." "So you'll help." "I'll see what I can do." David smiles in relief, his whole body loosening like someone's cut his strings. It's such a funny thing: somewhere along the line George got really good at convincing people he wasn't an asshole. It's a complete lie. There will be a hearing. There will be a cover up, and he'll tow the line. Unless she dies. "That's blackmail, Kirk," Admiral Meadow says when he explains this to her. "Not blackmail, ma'am. But that wasn't a research vessel: Gelan hasn't been of interest since we found it. And then suddenly 396 people are dead." "There was a parasitic species" "I'm more interested in the 'why they were there in the first place' part of this," he interrupts. "In case I haven't been clear yet." "You're playing a very dangerous game, Kirk."

"I'm not playing." The hearing is scheduled for October 29th. David smiles at him in relief, and 600-odd people give him and his uniform suspicious looks until it ripples through that he's the guy who got them this hearing. "Sothis is good, right?" David presses. "This means that they'll be giving reparations, beyond the life insurance policies," George says, scanning the three admirals and the clerks. Meadow is one of them, but he doesn't recognize the other two. "The ones who survive will probably get an equal amount in hazard pay." "But that's good, right?" David presses. "We'll get answers." George grins at him, and nods. "Yeah. We'll get answers." They won't be the truth, but they'll get answers. "This convenes the official Hearing on the USS Black Hawk's latest mission. Given that none of the crew could be here" "Because they're in the hospitals," George says, fully loud enough to be heard, propping his foot up on the chair in front of him and sprawling. The AdmiralGeorge is fucked if he knows what his name islifts his heavy eyebrow at him. "And who are you?" "George Kirk. Sir." Says it as contumeliously as possible. "Mr. Kirk" "Commander." Oh, this guy is on his last nerve already. "Commander Kirk, then. I'll thank you not to interrupt proceedings." "I just want it in the transcript that the people in question, the four still living, aren't absent because they're vacationing on Orion, but because they're all in medical comas. Sir." "Let the record show it," the other unknown Admirals says, gesturing for the first to be quiet. She takes over. "Officer Okska, please report on what you have learned of the Umani." "As far as we can be certain, the Umani were a corporeal people. They were believed to have died out when a civil war broke out and biological warfare was engaged. However, one sect believed themselves capable of leaving their physical selves and reaching a 'higher plane.' Based on crew reports and the logs we were able to recover, it appears they were trapped there in a state of limbo after achieving a separation of body and mind, unable to progress: stagnant entirely. And so they endeavored to use hosts. It seems that they would enter the body of an individual and shut down the brains to the point where only autonomic functions were persisting. This gave them control of the brains and they were able to re-corporealize." Well, that at least is true. "What went wrong?" Meadow prompts, leaning forward. "The crew fought back, understandably. All eleven of the initial survivors were noted to be, by various sources, 'immune.' All complained of a headache, which appears, given the anecdotal evidence, to have been the first symptom, but then were fine." There are a fewrambling, scholarly-sounding explanations on Umani culture and how it interfered with sensory issues. And then they seem to be done. Whichfuck no. "Why didn't Starfleet realize something was wrong?" he demands, standing again and bracing against the rail. David exhales a little: it sounds like relief. "Commander Kirk." "No. My wife's in a coma, so you're going to tell me why, when it's procedure for vessels to check in every 72 hours with Starfleet unless

otherwise ordered, it was a surprise when the Black Hawk limped into view. There were four months where it wasn't picked up on that this was a problem. Four months. It was a scientific anthropological trip that was supposed to take nine months. It took six, and for four of those it was MIA." "Well, it was actually only off the grid for two months," one of the clerks says. George raises his eyebrow. Oh, really? "We think that the Umani realized they were going to have issues and pre-recorded updates. The Black Hawk's systems were ruined, but they were transmitting updates that were legitimate." David glances at George and George nods like he buys it. This is a better answer for these peopleit's not the truth, or it's not the whole truth, but this might genuinely be why Starfleet ignored them when families said there was a problem. Hostile alien races are much easier to cope with. The thing is, he's doing this. Participating in what he's pretty fucking sure is a farce, but he spent four months worrying about a lack of check-in. He spent four months freaking out a little, but getting reassured by the hierarchy. And he he needs to believe that Starfleet is the good guys. He needs to believe that they don't think their people are expendable. If she dies, he's coming after all of them. With a fucking baseball bat. If she doesn't, but he finds out that this washe still might come after them with a baseball bat. And it won't be a wooden one. He meets Meadow outside the hearing. "Why were they going to Gelan?" "Kirk." "Why'd they go to Gelan, Admiral?" She sighs, looks away. "I don't know. It was aclassified mission. We figured it was botanical or relocation of witnesses or something, but" "But?" "It's Gelan, Kirk. That rock isn't interesting, and you'd put a prisoner on Gelan, not a witness." "You're stonewalled." "Yeah. I'm stonewalled." "But the thing about the transmissions?" "It was a research vessel, so the priority wasn't high. The part about the fake check-ins, that's true." "I want those files." "Kirk, you could lose your star on this." "I'm on the verge of losing my wife on this. I want the damn files." He walks off, because if he doesn't he'll commit acts of violence that won't just bust him out of Starfleet, but get him into jail. He goes home, and holds onto Sammy for a while, eats Mama's cooking and tries to get back into the headspace that resembles normal. This is what she does, not him. He'd want to know. Those families deserve the whole truth. When he knows it he'll tell them. Leak it. Who cares if he loses his star? "You're running yourself into the ground," Pop says flatly after lunch. "Right into the ground, George." "Yeah," he agrees. "But this is complete and utter shicrap." Sammy blinks at him, then goes back to his space ships. George takes another cup of lemonade and nurses it. "Sure, George," Mama agrees, putting her hand on the back of his head briefly before moving into the kitchen to help Pop with dishes. "But sweetheart, when did you last sleep?" She bullies him into napping with Sammy, who thinks it's hilarious that Daddy's napping too. Whatever. He wants a do-over. On life.

He wants her to walk in the door and say that they're going to some corner of the globe that's struck her fancy just because she wants to go.

"When you go," he said, finally, "You've got to take me with you. Don't go without me."

She sighed, like he was missing the point, so he moved over and kissed her, soft and earnest, like a promise, before saying into the space between 2216. [Summer '16; age 12] "Sweets, if you don't actually talk I'm gonna like, strangle you or something," them, "I mean it, sweets." he groaned, picking up his comm for the seventeenth time that night. It said "I'm going," she replied, and he nodded, because okay. Because Jenny something unflattering about him that he kept picking up, he was pretty Bunting up and left her family and it almost wrecked the two people she left sure. Whatever. behind. But Winona was better for it, and Jimhe was a good guy. He loved Winona, and even when he was bad at being a dad, the fact that he "I just like knowing you're there," she replied, and it had be four because loved her so openly made up for a lot. they'd moved onto the disturbingly honest portion of this farce they call "night." He glanced at the clock: 4:09. 4:10. "First we're going to my house for like, jackets and money," George "You wanna come over?" he asked. At least if she came over he could stick decided, pointing. She squealed the tires turning them around, and he sank low in the seat, feeling the seat belt dig into his skin. He was going to die. her in the bed, pulls the covers over them, and he could get some sleep. This was such a mistake. "Can't. They're downstairs." Climbing up the side of the house into his room, he grabbed his backpack "Sweetheart, you're so fucking crazy and I'm not awake enough for this and his comm and his 'Winona Emergency Fund' which his parents laughed and" Wait. "They?" at but was totally legit because that was seven years of birthday and Christmas money right there, which was $1,400 dollars. At least. Then he "She's back." threw underwear, another pair of pants, and two shirts into the backpack. "What?" Then thought about it and grabbed socks. And then he stopped, because she can only be "Until we run out of gas?" he asked as he slid back into the car, feeling breathless and exhilarated. It was so illegal-they were going to get caught "Oh fuck no." and Pop was gonna have to bail them out, buthe didn't care. He really He took the mustangshe got it running when they were eight, and now it didn't. was anti-grav and smooth as butter and sometimes he thought she loved it "East or west?" she asked with a grin. better than him. He jammed it into gear and took off towards the Buntings' house. He was twelve, but he grew up on a farm: he knew how to drive "East," he decided. "No, south. I want to see New Orleans." when he was six. It was dilapidated and wearyit kind of looked like Jim She laughed and they headed south. They stopped for chips and candy and Bunting, who always looked like he went three rounds with someone and pop and got breakfast sandwiches at six, and blasted the radio and lost. laughed, feeling old. Reckless. "Sweets!" he shouted, trying not to feel like he was in a teen movie. It was He called his parents at seven, when they were probably about to go up to hard. "Sweets, get your ass out here!" get him to get ready for school. He probably should have left a note. She leaned out the window. "Oh, wherefore art thou Romeo?" she sighed "Where are you?" Mama demanded, and she sounded frantic. He winced. breathily, and he laughed because she's such a fuckhead. She was a squirrel, though, and so she slid down the side of the house as easily as she He didn't mean to panic her. climbed up the side of his, in "Where are we?" he asked Winona, who looked around and shrugged. "That's my shirt!" "Out of Iowa. Maybe like, bottom half of Illinois? Not Missouri yet." "Shut up and move," she muttered, rolling her eyes like he was missing the point. He moved, only because she was the one that the sheriff would be expecting, and he could do his "I was only trying to keep her out of trouble, but then I was hijacked and it wasn't my fault, really, officer" routine. Whichhe wasn't really sure why people still bought that. Clearly he went of his own free will every time. There was also the fact that someone had to bail her out, and she blew through money like it was water, and he knew enough to save. Okay, so at twelve they hadn't been in a situation requiring bail money, but George wasn't stupid, and the whole town expected the day to come, and he wasn't one to scoff at self-fulfilling prophecy. So she drove. But then she just kept driving. "We've got school tomorrow," he pointed out, in case she'd forgotten. It was possible. Winona was smart, but she hated school, and most of the teachers hated her. It was the whole "talking back" thing she did. "Don't you want to just go?" she demanded, stopping on the edge of town limits and then looking at him. "Don't you want to goout? Up?" He looked at her for a long time, and then down the road. Yes. Because there had to be more, and he wasn'tmade for quarry or farm. Maybe it was too much exposure to her but he wanted up and out so bad he could taste it. "We're going to get so lost," he muttered, and Mama shouted; "Lost?" "Mama, we're fine. It's me and Winona. We got gas and the mustang and money." "Italk to your father." There was some rustling in the background. Winona was laying on the hood of the car, not bothered by panicking parents and possible groundings until thirty. "George? George? What's going on?" Pop demanded brusquely. "Nothing, it'sMrs. Bunting's back and so we just you know. Split?" He winced: he didn't mean for that to be a question. "You've got school." Pop sounded like he was trying not to yell. George could envision it: he was probably drumming the nearest surface with his fingers. "It's the last week of school, no one ever does anything. Plus I have a 4.0 this year, and actually, so does she." It was a weird thing. Like, he knew, intellectually, that she was smart and stuff. It just always was kinda stunning when she got As. Probably because the teachers really didn't want to give them to her. "George, neither of you have your license."

"Yes, but we're abiding by speed limits so there's no cause to pull us over. It'd be discrimination against little people." It was possible that Winona was a bad influence on him, but she raised her eyebrows and held out a Coke. He opened it and took a drink, watching her eat gummy worms by the handful. That's so gross, he mouthed at her before shifting the comm and saying, "Pop. We'll be back in less than a week. We're going to New Orleans, we'll check in when we get there and like, every day. Okay? I gotta go, we want to get there before sunset." "George, it's June. The sun sets at 8." "We could get really lost, Pop. Love you!" He disconnected. There's a minute where she looked at him, and it hung heavy in the air: we could turn around. "Soabout the burning daylight thing?" he asked, and stole a gummy worm from her. It took them twelve hours, and by some miracle they didn't get pulled over. Probably because when they switched drivers he drove the speed limit in a really anal way. They parked the car and checked into a motelwell, Winona managed to get them checked in, and the place was cheap and crummy and smelled kind offunky, but it was some place new, and he had all this jittery energy from the drive. He sat on the edge of his bed while she explored the tiny room and its bathroom like she was going to find Narnia behind the Clorox. He checked in with his parents, who were suspiciously evasive on the subject of Winona's parents. Whatever, not like he was really invested in them. He might be glad they got together to have a kid, but then they kind of fucked her over, so. Well, Mrs. Bunting, anyway. He kind of wanted her to die in fire. "We're going out for dinner," she decided, hopping onto the bed. "Yeah, okay," he agreed, because it wasn't like he had stuff to make something in the motel room. They wound up in a dive off the tourist path. It was dark, somehow, even though it was lit with neon lights. There was a live jazz band playing in the corner and it was clearly the kind of place where everyone knew each other; the kind of place that had regulars. "What can I get you kids?" the waiter, whose name was DeShonte (at least according to his nametag), asked. "We're from Iowa," Winona informed him, shifting to grin up at him. The waiter grinned backpeople did that with her. George sat back and watched, because it was just fun to watch her. To see her tilt her head and smile and not be aware of the fact that she was really prettythat people reacted to that as much as the charm. "And we want to eat stuff you couldn't get in Iowa. So no cheeseburgers and no hot dogs or, you know. Generic food." DeShonte laughed and took the menu. "Okay, then. And on a budget, I think?" "Um, yeah," Winona agreed, nodding seriously before tilting her chair and head back and laughing. DeShonte shook his head with a grin, and went to place the order.

"Pretty little thing like this?" Mr. Malcolm winked at her and Winona shook her head and rolled her eyes but laughed. "Oh" George loved telling Winona-stories. There was something about the shock value, or the fact that people flat-out refused to believe him for solong, until the evidence overwhelmed them. "George, don't you dare," she threatened, waving her knife at him. George grinned, because she'd wreaked havoc around him his whole life but he was in the eye of the storm: nothing was gonna happen to him. "When we were in kindergarten Becky Garland wouldn't shut up about how pretty and perfect her hair was for a whole week. Her mom was finally letting her wear it down and had probably been talking up what a big deal it was, so Becky was, you know, proud. She just was a little bit of a jerk and made fun of everyone else's hair in comparison. So this one gets sick of it and cuts her hair off. Grabs the ponytail in one hand, sits on her and chops it off. With like, the dinky scissors they give you. The plastic ones. It took likefive minutes." George had gotten in trouble that time: mostly because he'd stood there staring. But they'd all stood there staring because who did shit like that? But apparently George was supposed to have magically been a good influence. He felt, sometimes, like the entire town was waiting for him to magically transform her into a good person. Hah. Yeah, right. "To be fair, she had it coming." "She cried for a month, sweets," George shot back, because she'd always been so complacent about that, but he couldn't stop the grin. "You didn't," DeShonte laughed, slapping the table with his big hand. "I did. And I stabbed a TA with a pen." She said it like she was commenting on the weather or something. Like it was no big deal. Which, at the time, it really really was. They'd drawn a crowd, but that happened with Winona, and so George just kept an eye on things and grinned. "To be fair he was a little handsy, and it was second grade," he put in. Winona considers this. "We had a seminar about the bad kind of touching after that." "Where in Iowa was this?" a waitress whose nametag reads 'Shoniqua' demanded, laughing. "Nowhere," George said wryly. "Farm and quarry country." "No wonder you two got out." "We're going back. We've got to finish school and my parents would probably hunt us down, and since I'm the one paying for this whole mad endeavor" George spread his hands, and gave Winona a "Don't get any ideas" look. "Girl, do not stick with a man who controls the money like that," Shoniqua warned Winona, who raised her eyebrows and then held up George's wallet. He reached for his pocket, where it was, out of instinct, and then gave her a long look. And then he ate another bite of sweet-potato cheesecake to soothe his soul. He freaking loved these sweet potatoes.

"Preach," DeShonte agreed, nodding at him like he'd said something wise. The manager, Mr. Malcolm, came over with their food, and showed them how to eat crawfish and listened as Winona depicted the ride over. She was Mr. Malcolm laughed. such a fucking exaggerator, but George never won when he tried to override "How old're you kids, anyway?" he asked. her so he just suffered and ate sweet potatoes. "Twelve," George said, before Winona kicked him in the knee. Which wasn't really a hardship. Mr. Malcolm stared, and he and DeShonte and Shoniqua seemed to have a "She's fiery," Mr. Malcolm chuckled as Winona paused for breath. frenzied conversations in gestures and glances that George couldn't quite "She's psychotic, don't be fooled," George retorted, throwing a piece of shell interpret, and let it be. Which was a relief, because they'd made it all the at her. She grinned at him, smug.

way down without anyone calling the cops on them, it'd be a shame to have it happen then. When it hit nine, the band started up in earnest, and Winona laughed and clapped along, and so he got up and dragged her out. No one was dancing yet, but clearly they were just waiting for someone to get them started. He put his hand in the small of her back and gripped her hand tightly and they dance like crazy, laughing the whole time and gasping for breath, and for the rest of his life he'd remember how she looked with neon lights in her hair and her head thrown back into a full-throated laugh as a New Orleans band played jazz in the background. Mr. Malcolm wouldn't hear of them paying, and he looked horrified when he heard where they were staying. He scribbled down an address and handed it to Winona. "I'll call ahead," he said. "Gotta be careful around here, kids." The new motel was less sleazy, and the big woman behind the counter told them to call if they needed anything. He laid down, shaking he was so tired but "What?" she asked, flopping down beside him. "Pretty good, right?" "It's like a knack you've got. 90% of the population you hate, but that 10% you can tolerate you always find, and they give free stuff." "Damn straight," she agreed, wiggling and pulling the sheet over them. "Stick with me, kid, 'cause we're going places." And he believed her. When they got home, a week later, he was grounded for life. Iowa was much colder than Louisiana, and much more subdued. Also, no sweet potatoes.

was the one with the record so obviously if one of them was going to take drastic measures, it should have been her. So he went out with Trudy and came back and waited for her to show up while he changed into his pajamas. He never heard her climb up the house, which was worrying, but he left the screen out because he didn't want her to like, accidentally break her neck. "Did you kiss her?" she demanded, sitting in his window. "I think she kissed me," he said, scrunching up his face with the memory and sitting on the edge of the bed. She narrowed her eyes at him. "Are you messing with me?" "Saliva was exchanged," he informed her, spreading his arms. "What do you want, a DNA sample?" Then he eyed her, because "You don't, do you? Because no good can come of that, and I know everyone thinks I give into you a lot, like, more than your dad, but I am not giving you a DNA sample of the girl who kissed me." "I don't want a DNA sample. And you do give into me." She climbed in and shoved her hair back. He sighed and threw the brush from his bedside table at her, which she caught (irritating). "I know. I'm trying to keep you from recidivism by showing you that people value you when you're not a flaming idiot." He liked 'recidivism' as a word. It was nicer than saying "doing the same stupid shit over and over again." "I haven't broken into the Piggly Wiggly in like, months," she pointed out, settling and brushing her hair viciously. "You only do it because you can. You don't even take anything," he agreed as they stretched out on his bed. "You're seriously bored, sweetheart. Gotta get outta this town."

But staring down both of his parents, who looked betrayed and heartsick, he "Yeah, well. There's this idiot who I can't really ditch." couldn't bring himself to apologize. He looked at her and raised his eyebrows, which prompted her to sigh like "I'm not sorry," he said finally, because he wasn't, and they always told him he was such an idiot (which he wasn't, he could play her like a fiddle, not not to lie. that he'd ever admit it). "You know what, forget this. You are clearly incapable of taking a hint." His parents and Mr. Bunting realized it was a lost battle, so they drew up guidelines. George and Winona were allowed to take off for spring and summer breaks, or three day vacations, as long as there was public transportation.

"Pretty bad, yeah," he agreed, and then smiled into the kiss she pressed to his lips. They did that for a bitpressing lips together and touching cheeks, shoulderssuddenly uncertain of where it was okay to touch. It was like a promise that would keep: only them. # But it was high school, fifteen, and a massive falling-out before anything ever really came of it. Kissing was consistent from thirteen, and he'd been to second base, but there wasn't any pressure. It was lazy and easy. But Frank Hallie was still lusting, even if George wasn't sure who he was lusting after, sometimes. "Man crush," Owen laughed as they changed in the locker rooms. "He's got such a man crush." "We are not men," George pointed out, panting. Track. Such a bad idea. Why was he on the track team? He hated running. God, why hadn't she talked him out of this shit? He turned on the shower. "I have hair" "Shut up!" Owen yelped, pointing at Henry, who grinned at them slyly. Henry was a big talker. Henry watched too much porn. "So, did you get any yet?" Owen asked George in what he probably thought was a low voice, but kind of ricocheted around the tiles of the shower stalls and was only marginally lower than a yell.

By the time they enlisted in Starfleet, they had to, because they'd been all over the planet already, and if they wanted new and exciting, they had to go up. He never said it, but he wondered, sometimes, if that had always been the point. Jenny Bunting only ever showed up once again. At Jim's funeral, when Winona was seventeen. He'd died of heart failure, which had surprised absolutely no one except Winona, who'd looked completely betrayed. Jenny didn't stay long. She had to take an ambulance to the hospital to tend to the broken nose and fracture in her cheekbone. Winona packed a hell of a punch. 2219 [age 15]. Technically, they'd been dating since they were eleven. But "going out" to eleven year olds meant sitting at the same table, or sitting next to each other at recess andthey'd always done that. They sealed the deal with a kiss, butokay, what happened was that he went out to the movies with Trudy VanHooten. Okay, that was mean to Trudy, and he should have felt bad about it (or so Mama said) but Winona was stupid about some things. And besides, if Frank Hallie got any closer to her George was going to kill him, and Winona

"What?" "You're the one with a steady girlfriend," Henry reasoned. "And damn, Winona is hot." "I'm so flattered you think I'm hot, Henry," Winona said amicably from where she's leaning against the stalls. Henry slipped and disappeared into his stall with a thud. Owen peered over and nodded. "Still alive," he announced. "Hi, Winona. Did you see the sign for boys only? No? Never mind." "What'd you do?" George demanded, rinsing out the shampoo and shutting off the water. "Nothing." There needed to be a law: she couldn't lie when she was crackling with smug energy. "Sweets, are we going to find anyone's car in the auditorium tomorrow?" George sighed, grabbing his towel and wrapping it around his waist firmly. They so were. She smirked. "Maybe. C'mon, I'll give you a ride home." "Winona, tell me you have gotten some," Henry implored her. She lifted her eyebrow and then grinned as they left the locker room and headed for the parking lot. That was the thing: George couldn't ever let people infer things. She was some sort of master at it. She'd gotten good when he'd dared her not to lie for a whole week. She'd just let other people lie for her and then believe them when she didn't say anything. He'd tried to argue that it was lying through omission, but the argument hadn't stuck. She was saying something: talking about what she was doing in shop or her latest run-in with the principal. He tuned it out. Not intentionally, he just got distracted by the way her hands moved on the steering wheel. He was fifteen. A cloud suggestively shaped got him horny, okay? He had a condom in his wallet: he bought it on a stupid whim a few months ago, feeling brave and being out of town. Small towns. Not conducive to sex lives. He was pretty sure everyone got their sex supplies off the internet or out of town. But nothing happened, becausehe didn't know if he was waiting for the moment to be right, or for her to make the first move, or what. But it was good: whatever it was, this weird exclusive but not really sexual thing between themit was good. They fit well, like a puzzle, or a dovetail joint. She got the replicator to give them pizza, and they did what little homework they had, watched terrible shows on TV and laughed at the bad science in them, and then Winona, because she was a freak, made him watch a few more episodes of Stargate Atlantis. He told her he really felt for John Sheppard, dealing with Rodney McKay. He could empathize. She hit him with a pillow and sulked. It was a good night. And so, the next morning, tucked together in the middle of her queen-sized bed (because Jim did spoil her, was desperate to make up for Jenny leaving ten years ago, even then), he didn't expect her to blink at him and then lean in and kiss him. Her hand curved around his neck under his ear, and he thanked dental advances for genuine long-lasting fresh breath in a stupid moment before exhaling against her mouth. He slid his hand on her hip, moved instinctively for a better angle, and it was more chaste than their kisses had been for a long time, but the promise hiding in the corners made him seek deeper, tracing her teeth with his tongue. It could have been awkward, but it didn't get there, and it was nothing like the porn he watched with Henry that day he was never going to talk about ever. He had to take a second to kind of contort to get out of his boxers and she slid out of her underwear and pulled off the tank top, which he helped with, their fingers fumbling together because there was no fade-in/fade-out option on real life.

Winona didn't moan throatily or lick her lips, but she did laugh, and say, "No, seriously, is this okay?" when she wrapped her hand around his dick. And he had no idea how the porn guys last for like, hours, because he was about to blow any second. "No, don't!" she laughed. "Wait. Stop. Stop." She reached over him to pull the drawer of her bedside table out and hand him a condom. "Oh god, the whole town knows," he groaned, and tried to remember that really mortifying day in health class and rolled it on. "No, I went to Hills," she informed him, handing him KY. "Use it." He slicked up, tried not to explode at the pressure of just his hand on his dick, and when he slid in she was tight and fluttered around him, and they worked slowly together, him braced over her with her ankles hooking behind his knees. "Oh, fuck," he groaned. "The idea," she gasped, and reached a hand between them, rubbing her clit while he fucked her, graceless but good, god, so good. Disposing of the condom was gross, but, as she pointed out, better than pregnancy. "What time is it?" he asked when he came back to the bed. "Eight." "It's too early," he decided, "for a Saturday. Go to sleep." She looked at him and deadpanned, "Romance is dead." "I love you too," he snorted, rolled over, and fell asleep. It was a really auspicious moment. It was possible that later, over breakfast, they made up a better story, and then practiced (both in word and in deed) to make sure it had a ring of truth about it. Really, people had such high expectations of them. Kinky, high expectations. It was their duty to make those fantasies a reality. Or something. 2232.24 [1/24/32; age 28] "It was covert, wasn't it?" he asks her. Every other person has been released (all three of them). She's still in a goddamn medical coma four months later. "The operation. The 'research.'" Her hair looks brittle, even though it's soft to the touch. He strokes it and then holds her cool hand. Her eyelids look paper-thin, a pale violet that reaches to her eyebrows and paints across the tops of her cheeks. Her lips are pale, the insides a sharp pink, and there's hardly any color on her cheeks. Even her freckles seem subdued. He hates this so much. "Hey, sweetheart. Remember when we got married? Remember what you promised?" No response, and he wants, very seriously, to scream. It's choking him. He'd always thought that Shakespeare was writing a comedy in Romeo and Juliet. It was a satire, making fun of kids who think they're in love and go to ridiculous extremes: everything in the play overblown and exaggerated. He'd always snorted at Romeo taking the poison at seeing what he thought was Juliet's corpse. Now he's beginning to get it, and it scares the shit out of him. "You okay?" Stacey asks as she comes in.

"I'm contemplating Romeo and Juliet." "Oh, that's not good." "No. You married, Stacey?" "Not anymore," she snorted. "I've got a five year old at home, but he's the only good thing that came from that." He laughs a little, contemplating her. Stacey's curvy, wears retro make up and has a tattoo of a ladybug on her neck. Just a little onelife sized. She says it's for luck. "Why?" she asks as she checks whatever it is that she checks when she comes in. "We were going to have a quick civil service, you know? But my mama threatened to cry and" "It's harder when family's involved," she agrees. "I had a big old church wedding. You?" He grins. "Top of a hill, in blue jeans." "Right on, man," she laughs. "That's the way to do it." "Yeah." "You thinking about the whole "'til death do us part" bit?" she asks. "We didn't say that bit," he muses, and then twitches his lips into a smile. "Went without saying, you know?" "Mm." 2222.247 [7/7/22; age 18] They got married July 7, a month after they graduated from high school. "We should just run away and do it. Let's go to New Orleans." "We haven't been to New Orleans since we were twelve." "I liked New Orleans."

us a ridiculous wedding. And our classmates want to see this before we go off to bigger and better things." "Bigger than this town." "Hella bigger," he agreed, and then laughed. "No independently-written vows." "God, no." "I'm not wearing white." "I'm shocked. I can't even breathe, sweetheart. That's how shocked I am." His mama was more than happy to plan it, and George wound up supervising everything because if Winona saw flowers at her wedding she would have probably run away just on principle. What principle, George didn't know. She'd invent one. They got married on top of the hill in his pop's field. It was a fucking miserably hot day, and he was in jeans and a white tee and she was wearing shorts with a tank top. Okay, the plan had been maybe for them to wear something fancier (they hadn't committed, really, just sort of made vague noises), but she'd pulled him into the barn, sat on the hood of the corvette and pulled him against her. His hand had crept of its own accord under her dress and slid the panties (if you could call that bit of lace underwear, and Jesus fuck she was already wet) down her thighs and off. And it wasn't his fault if, after he stood close again, his fingers slid into her and he rolled his knuckles over her clit, gasping against her lips as she tongue-fucked his mouth. He was straining, and the khakis gave a lot, so he was tenting, whichattractive. She was pressing into his fist, trying to get him to press harder, one of her hands coming down to cover his and he laughed, bit her lower lip before pulling back, shifting and unzipping as she came, gasping and shuddering, her hips snapping. All his.

"How long?" he grunted. He sighed, stretching out on the bed. She always laid on the side next to the "Twenty minutes and some, come on, George, fuck me, let's go." wall. He read somewhere that people watch people because they don't trust "I will gag you," he promised, and her eyes darkened andanyone could them not to run. He'd always watched her. He didn't like to think that walk in. This was not smart. somehow, thirteen years later, he still didn't trust her not to run. See, she wasn't reallyvocal, just verbal. Constantly talking, filthy words But he was the one who pushed for marriage before Starfleet. It was dripping from her lips and going straight to his cock. He was an asshole, so justhe didn't like the idea that someone at some point could tell him no. he slid back, and gagged her with her own panties. She could spit them out. That they couldn't do this, this thing they have. That it was against He was holding her wrists, but she could spit them out. regulations, somewhere down the line. It was just practical. He had her, he wasn't giving her up, and he wanted the legally binding piece of paper to She didn't, just glared, and George had to take a second because if he say so. didn't he would have come in his pants. Jesus fucking Christ. If he'd had to drug her and haul her to the justice of the peace in handcuffs Bent her over the hood of the car, dropped the khakis and his boxers, lined he would have. up and shoved in, benefit to being married (like he'd ever thought of anyone else, please) and she was dripping down her thighs, Jesus Christ, so good. "You did like New Orleans. You also liked Havana. And Mexico City. And Lima. You like southern regions busy with people who you play like a She was already sensitive, already hot, bent over the hood of the car with fiddle." the back of her skirt hitched up around her ass, hands pressed flat against the hood, not moving even though he wasn't holding them there anymore. "I like warm places. They keep my toes warm." She conspicuously didn't address the second half of his statement. Which was true. So entirely true. It's fast, sliding in and out and he actually can't marry her if he's thinking People in embracing cultures liked Winona for reasons beyond George's about how he just filled her up like, twenty minutes before, so he comes comprehension. She made easy friends with them. She was still in touch over her ass. with Carmen, from Barcelona. They so had to change. "So will San Francisco." He pulled the panties out of her mouth and grinned, kissing her. "So" "That's true. But we're not getting married in San Francisco." "Shut the fuck up," she snapped, grinning and wiping her ass off with them. "No, we're getting married here. Because your dad wanted you to. And "I don't even think I have a change, and this is so not an option." The dress because my mama will have crying fits and my pop's almost forgiven you for was ruined. It died for a good cause. wrapping the mustang around the tree but he won't if you don't let him buy If he was a suspicious man, he'd suspect her of planning its demise.

But that was how they wound up getting married in jeans and a white tee and her in shorts with a tank top. Those were the only clothes she had at the house, and he wasn't wearing goddamn khakis if she was in Daisy Dukes. Well. Close enough, anyway. It wasn't like they'd told anyone to dress upthe dress code had been casual. They were justsetting an example. Mama started sobbing as soon as she saw them. The justice of the peace looked at them both with weary green eyes. "Seriously?" "We wanted to elope," Winona pointed out. The justice of the peace had probably been in that job for a century, and leaned against her cane as though it was the only thing helping her endure this ignominy. "Friends, family. You have all gathered here to see Winona Margaret Bunting and George Samuel Kirk legally wed. Apparently this is very brass tacks, so, if you'd " "I, Winona Margaret Bunting, swear to take you with me when I go," Winona informed him, and the justice let out a long-suffering sigh that might have been a death rattle. "I didn't" the justice began, and George laughed, waving her off. "I, George Samuel Kirk, find those terms agreeable. And I swear to willingly sit in the passenger seat." "That's" the justice tried again. "George!" Mama protested.

"Um, yes." He laughed, and tugged her over to say good night to his parents. "We're so happy for you both," Mama quavered. "Making it official. It could have been a nicer ceremony, of course butwell. How would we know it was you two? At least the town will be talking about it for months." "Years, surely," Winona disagreed, and Mama laughed. "Yes, probably years," she agreed, and hugged Winona tight. "I still remember you as a little girl in a sun dress breaking dishes," she said, voice shaking again. "And now look at you both. Graduated, off to Starfleet, married" She bit her bottom lip and gazed at them both. "What you're mother's trying to say is we're proud of you," Pop interjected, hugging them both. "Go on, get out of here." "Love you, Pop. Mama," George said, and then left, ignoring cat calls. "You think any of them are going to get out of this town?" he asked. "I don't know," she replied, pausing before sliding into the corvette. "They might. It's not a bad place to raise kids." "Yeah, but it's not a great place to be an adult if you're not a farmer." "George?" "Yes, Mrs. Kirk?" She smacked him upside the head. "They're all farmers or quarry-miners. No one in our graduating class is going to leave town." He grinned and pulled her in for a kiss. "Yeah. What went wrong with us?"

"Oh, fine" Winona sighed, glaring at the sky. George bit his cheeks and tried "So much." really really hard not to laugh. "I blame you," he informed her. "Dude, man up," Henry whispered, nudging him. Right. Manning up. "That's probably fair." "Thank you," Mama sighed, and settles down. The justice glared at them both. "Winona Margaret Bunting, will you receive George Samuel Kirk as your lawfully wedded husband? Will you share your life with him, hold your love firm, and dutifully care for him in all the varying circumstances of your life?" She inhaled through her nose, and eyed him. George narrowed his eyes at her. "Yes. I will." "Excellent," the justice muttered. "And George Samuel Kirk, will you receive Winona Margaret Bunting as your lawfully wedded wife? Will you share your life with her, hold your love firm, and dutifully care for her in all the varying circumstances of your life?" "In all varying circumstances is ominous, don't you think?" he asked her. "I mean, fitting, but" Henry knocked into his shoulder again, and George grinned. "Yeah. I will." 2232.45 [2/14/32; age 28] George Samuel Kirk Jr. was born on August 12, 2229. He very nearly took his mother with him. She was allergic to the drug that they'd given her to ease the contractions: apparently the dickwad performing the delivery didn't read her chart. And so George had been forced out of the operating room (because the delivery room turned into an operating room) and he had sat for six hours, shaking apart, until the doctor said he could come in. They'd named him fast, because he'd wanted her to know what Sammy's name was before ifthey hadn't been certain she was going to pull through. She had, of course, and she loved Sam, but they never wound up calling him George. He liked the name Sammy. Nobody'd been Samuel in two generations: his grandfather's namehe barely remembered him, he'd died when George was three.

"Then by the powers vested in me by the State of Iowa and the United Federation of Planets, I pronounce you legally married. Congratulations, you But Sammyhe was everything. Happy, bright, and perfect. deserve each other." George smiles at the thought as he opens the door. She's going to come out of it, according to the latest testing. She can handle it, now. Thank fuck. Winona snorted and they leaned in for a kiss, easy and chaste. The reception was a barn dance, which was ridiculous, and Winona leaned over and said, "I think Frank cried." "It was a moving ceremony," he replied earnestly, and she laughed. "Oh yeah. So. I got handcuffs." "Leather or metal?" "Leather. Metal bruises too much, and you're delicate like a flower."

Sammy is all smiles, no reproach for having been away, for only videoconferencing for days at a time. George sits and just holds onto him, and it's so important not to fall apart, not to cry in front of Sammy, but this little boy in his arms just makes him want to fall apart all over. Sam stays tucked into his arms, small arms wrapped around George's neck. Finally he clears his throat; is okay to pull away. "Want to go get breakfast?"

"I'll show you flower," he muttered, and then reflected. "Except not. Think we "Pancakes!" Sammy shouts, and runs (and falls) to get his shoes and bring them over. can escape?"

They go to the diner down the block where Winona and George practically "This is Winona. She never does what she's supposed to," he murmurs, and lived during school. Now it's a treat: then it was a necessity. The pancakes then reconsiders. "Well. She does it on her own timeline. According to her are as good as the ones his mom made back homeit had been a godsend own moral code." finding that in the vastness that San Francisco had seemed then. "You know what? I can't wait to meet her," Stacey confides. He lets Sam order whatever he wants, because he's feeling guilty, and "Yeah, well. Be careful what you wish for." stares down a few cadets with his special "I married Winona Bunting, I It takes four hours for her to surface instead of 36. couldbreak you" eyes when they're too crude and loud around his kid. Four long, tense hours in which he's pretty sure they're going to have to One snorts, and he lets his voice slide into his "I am your CO, bitch" treat him for heart palpitations. Jesus Christ. He's 27. He's too young to be register. "Do we have a problem, cadet?" dealing with this. Or too old. Orfuck it all. "No, sir," the cadet replies, back stiffening like someone yanked his spine, "My mouth tastes really bad," she informs them all very seriously. and high-tails it. Sammy laughs at him, and George grins at him reluctantly. Apparently the Winona DNA inoculates him from the glare. It's probably a good thing. "So, tell me about the zoo." And Sammy does, in his faltering language that has George filling in the gaps and Sammy laughs when George gets it right. It's an easy rhythm, and he loves this: loves being a dad. Loves Sammy. He spends the whole day just soaking him up: it's like recharging his battery. The official findings on the USS Black Hawk's doomed mission have been released for public consumption. Winona comes off as something of a hero, and George gets a few glowing mentions from David, whose become the poster boy for the spouses. "I've got to go back to see Mommy, now, okay?" he says after dinner. Sam looks at him, then at the door. "Mommy still sick?" "Yeah, Mommy's sick. And I've got to stay with her so she gets better. So I'm not going to be here when you wake up. But I'll be back okay?" Stacey's lips twitch but she valiantly suppresses the grin as she hands her a breath-freshening strip. Winona sucks at it, blinking around. "Hi," Winona says, decisively. "Hey. Welcome back," he manages. "I hate that ship." She takes the water Stacey offers, but doesn't drink it. She doesn't like water. Needs lemon. He'll have to remember to tell them. God, he's so glad to be able to tell people things she likes when she's alive. "I know," he agrees, taking her hand, pressing his forehead to the back of it before kissing her knuckles. "It was shit," she continues, and he can feel her watching him, but if she's not going to talk about it then he's not going to talk about it. He's just going to have a small breakdown over her hand. Nothing to see here. Move along. "I know," he says again. "I had to limp it back. And break the replicators because I needed the parts. No food." She sounds mournful, and if relief wasn't hitting him like a kick to the gut, so hard his eyes are watering and his throat is closing up, he'd laugh. Some.

"Okay," Sam decides, and hugs him tightly. George holds on for a while, just "Hey, Kirk." like he did when he came. Then he kisses the top of his head, and hands "Yeah." He inhales wetly, blinks away the tears and looks at her, can't bear him off to Pop, hugging him and kissing Mama's cheek. to look away, can't bear for it to be cloudy. Has to see her like this. Alive. God. He's been grieving. He's been grieving for four months. And now he's "They want to bring her out of sedation tomorrow, so. I'll keep you posted," got her. He's got her back. he says softly. "I'll take you with me." Two kids, in a mustang at the edge of the world they "You just take care of you and Winona," Mama replies, squeezing his knew, making a stupid promise. hands. "And stop harassing the brass, George." He blinks at her innocently. "Me? I stopped that months ago. The official report came out, what more could I possibly want, Mama?" "Mmm. You've got the whole world thinking you're not trouble," she informs him as she walks him to the door, "but I'm your mother. And I remembereverything." He laughs, hitting the elevator button. "I love you." "I love you too, baby." The walk back to the hospital is a bad one: he feels heavier the closer he gets, the tension sliding back into place in his shoulders. It's true: even Meadow doesn't seem to remember that he was kind of an asshole (and when he says "kind of" he means an utter asshole. He knows there was something on that planet. He knows that only the captain and the XO knew about it, and both of them died, leaving the crew who limped theBlack Hawk back to Earth completely ignorant. Winona was going to choke a bitch). "Have a good time?" Stacey asks when he comes in. "I did. How was she today?" "No change, except for healing. The sonic treatment has worked, so when they bring her upwe're fairly confident she'll come out well." "Promise?" "Swear. When I go. I'll take you, even if I have to shoot you." "I love you." He leans up, kisses her. "You're not allowed to ever do that again." She laughs, cups his cheek, and he can feel her hand shaking a little. But she ignored his moment, so he's ignoring hers. It's true love, or some shit. Stacey makes a strangled noise. "I'll go get Sammy. He'll want to see you. You good?" "Wake me up if I'm asleep." She smiles faintly, and he kisses her again. He smiles, and leaves to call Pop and Mama to tell them to bring Sammy over. "The scary thing," Stacey says softly from behind him. "Was that you wereserious." He blinks at her, pausing in the door. "About what, Stacey?" "About her shooting you. I just thought you were devotedyou were serious." He grins, slow and simple. "I guess." He'd soldier on. For Sammy. He'd try.

"She's awake, and wants to see Sammy," George says. "I know it's late" "No, we'll be right over," Pop says, and yawns. "Be there in 20." "Thanks, Pop." He slides the comm back into his pocket, glances up at the sky, and thinks, fucking finally. Then he turns and heads back inside. He was gone for all of 10 minutes. When he walks into the room, there are two admirals, again, neither of whom he recognizes, three security officers, and a woman who is five years older than when he last saw her, but no less dangerous looking. "Oh, thank god you're here," Ren says. "Stacey left and I got here and bam, all these people. Who are they?" "Trouble," George mutters. "How is she?" "Fine. Pissed, kinda scary, but medically she's fine." George nods and starts for the room, then turns, "My parents are bringing Samjust, stall them until this is over, will you?" Stacey nods, and heads for the front desk to tell the receptionist. George walks into the room, pushing through the cluster to sit in his chair and fold his hand over hers. "They trying to sell you the line?" "They're such shit at it," she says, gesturing at all of them. "I'm almost embarrassed for them." "You have to understand" one of the admirals tries. "I do?" She looks at George, and he grins and shrugs. "Kirk, it was a failure" the other admiral begins. "Gross failure." "of the system, but it was an aberration, and we've taken steps" "I'm sure you have." "to ensure that it will never happen again," he finishes, looking exasperated and flushed. "But you let it happen once." "Regrettably." The problem iswell, the problem on top of the fact that it happenedthey don't seem like they found it very regrettable. They probably have a concept of not dwelling, moving on, but Winona's the last one to come out of this, and they seem like they're just relieved that she's pulled through so they can put the mess behind them. She nods, tightly, because everything still must feel tense. The way she's holding herself and the way she's squinting serves to just make her look out past the side of homicidal and into genocidal. George can't help the grin from spreading, and Phil gives him a strange look. Maybe this was what his parents were talking about when they said he had everyone fooled into thinking he was a mitigating influence. He looks at the dangerous woman with short hair and pretty eyes, and she looks back, implacable. So that's how this was. It's kind of a relief to know he was right: it was all covert. And it's liberating to know that they'll claim security and classify it, so it won't be on him to tell the families the truth: give them the why. It gets to be a tragic accident for everyone outside of this room. Charming. 2224 [age 20]. Their second year as cadets they took a summer guided tour of core Federation planets. Winona got edgy and uncomfortable on Vulcan, which

surprised no one, but liked the parliamentary planet, which surprised George. "Come on," she laughed when he mentioned it as they walked down the expansive streets. "Everyone's an asshole here. This must be where my mom was from." He considered that. "Does that mean you're going to punch people, sweetheart?" "Possibly," she replied, and then flashed a grin. It wasn'treassuring, and he gave her a look. "Here, this is Stillwell's." Senator Stillwell, one of Earth's senators, invited them to walk with him in the garden. As they wandered through the maze of shrubs, the senator and Winona fell into an argument. Which shocked George to his core. Really. He exchanged wry looks with the bodyguards and looked around. It was a lovely garden, if you discounted the fact that there were whole planets who would never make enough money to buy one of the roses. "Please, the governor of California was the best of bad choices, but he's still terrible," Winona snorted. "No, no, he'swell. Verbose?" Stillwell suggested, clearly trying not to laugh and failing miserably. George grinned and shook his head. The only reason the governor was a subject of conversation was due to the interest he'd been taking in Starfleet and the influence he was trying to exert over it. "And without policy so much as political ambition." "And without brains, really," Winona dismissed. "He's as corrupt as they come, and somehow he thinks that wooing the Vulcan ambassador is going to curry him favor. The man who cannot stop lying trying to get in good with the people who can't." Stillwell looked at George. George was a firm believer that if people took her on in conversation, they should be left to die in the holes that they dug themselves. He wasn't helping: he could win fights with her. Stillwell floundered a little, trying to be charming. It didn't work, and George shouldn't have enjoyed watching him fail as much as he did (and he really, really did). When it happened, it happened so fast he wasn't sure what was going on. It sounded, improbably, like firecrackers, and he actually wondered if there was some sort of festival on the planet until he saw the expression on one of the bodyguard's face as the other one collapsed face-down. By the time he'd turned to grab Winona, it was over. All three assailants dead, and Winona holding the bodyguard's phaser. Stillwell just stared at her and George walked up, standing behind her and tilting his head to scan the perimeter. "That all of them?" "I think so." She handed the standing bodyguard back the phaser, and then looked at Stillwell. "So you were saying about Ambassador Sarek?" He just looked at her, and she looked back at George. "What?" "So when you said you were going to test out of marksmanship" "She got it before I could even grab for it," the bodyguard said vaguely, gesturing helplessly. "She's sneaky," George agreed, handing the phaser back to her. "Do we need to sign an incident report or" "No, we'll take care of it," Stillwell said, clearly shaken, and George nodded, and followed Winona back out. She knew exactly how to get out. "So three people, dead. How did you do that?" "Shooting range on campus," she shrugged. "Sometimes I skip class and go down there. I wonder why they targeted him."

He felt like this was something he should have known about, memories of TAs getting their hands stabbed through with pens and Becky Garland's shorn hair and various bruises and broken bones that littered their joined history surfacing to roil uncomfortably in his stomach. It wasn't that he thought she was going to become a serial killerhe honestly didn't. It was justshe didn't need the temptation. She liked engineeringshe liked mechanics and physics, and he liked her better like that. She was happiest when she was putting a machine back together: their apartment is littered with parts that she's eliminated or bypassed because she figured out a way to make things more efficient. He has to wear shoes in the house because those little metal things are gunning for his feet. "Sweets" "It's fine." "Three people are dead."

"What was that?" she asked, pushing off the hallway wall and raising her eyebrows. "Some mysterious agency wants you to be the stick." She frowned. "Instead of the carrot? Did you sleep through history?" "Sometimes." "I know," he sighed, and then squinted against the bright sunlight. "You working tonight?" "Yeah. My Spanish and Cardassian are getting much better," she said, beaming. "And Klingon. Klingon is satisfying, because everything you say is just fucking dirty."

When they'd gotten to San Francisco, George had gotten a job as a research assistant with Professor Goldnow he was TAing three of her classes and working with the entire department. It was good work, and "Instead of the senator." would look great on his resumassisting the entire Strategy & Tactics "I don't need to be worried, right? I mean, I know they deserved it, butI department would help him get into Command School. But Winona had don't need to worry about you, right?" snorted and said she wanted to be around machines, so she found a "They were going to kill him. And all of us. I didn't have the luxury of aiming garage down the street from the apartment they were renting and had at kneecaps because it was set to 'kill' and you can't incapacitate with 'kill' in bullied the shop owner into letting her work there. She was there most any way except, you know, entirely." She unlocked their hotel room (so nights, and Sanchez, the owner, didn't seem to care when she showed up much nicer than all those dives they'd stayed in as kids) and shrugged. "I or left, only that she stayed. Allegedly, business was thriving. She don't know what you want me to say." justliked machines. He was pretty sure that it had something to do with He nodded, becausewell. It was them, or the bad guys, and he liked being the way they were predictable, or puzzles that she could put together faster and better than anyone else. alive. She didn't do it unprovoked, and if he'd been quicker on the draw, it would have been him. "I'm shocked that you're enjoying it. Does anyone at the garage speak Klingon?" She was, he had noticed, taking a lot of language classes. Then the recruiting efforts started. Apparently she had an ear for it. He wasn't sure why she needed Klingon At first it was just messages: "Winona Kirk, Special Agent Umbetti calling. I and two dialects of Romulan, but he was taking two advanced physics heard from the Senator about your experience. We'd like to talk to you courses and a coding course, soit didn't really matter. about specialization." "No, it's like my ace in the hole," she replied, smirking. "I'll see you around He wanted to know what kind of special agent identified themselves as nine." such. Maybe not secret ones. It didn't matter, the messages all got deleted. "I'll be at home. Writing that paper." He really shouldn't have put it off so And then professors started in on it. long. He had all the notes and the materials all marked off and waiting, but "I thought this was a peacekeeping armada," George drawled at the seventh he couldn't ever bring himself to write something ahead of time. He'd probably pull an all-nighter on this one. one. Winona had already laughed and walked off. "You shouldn't have put it off so long." Winona, improbably, did things when "Sometimes, son, you keep peace at point-blank range," the commander they were assigned to her. Within three days of an assignment, she had it replied. "Someone has to be able to take on the Klingons and Romulans, done. Drove him nuts. and they're better at espionage." "She would suck at espionage. She'd also suck at being any kind of agent. If Especially because sometimes, when she was feeling particularly evil, she would lay on the bed and slide a hand between her legs and put on a show. she didn't agree with the mission, she'd fuck it up on purpose. Call our Because she was evil. teachers in Riverside and ask them about assignments she didn't agree with. Or hey, you had that problem with the last paper. Where she wrote And then he'd have to leave it alone and fuck her against the wall, and then thirty pages on why it was a stupid assignment because your hypothesis rush to get the paper done even faster. Because she was the devil. was invalid. You remember. You gave it an A." "I do my best work under pressure," he reminded her, because that, at least, "Mr. Kirk, I realize your wife is a difficult" he began, and George could was true. He did. picture very vividly punching him in his shiny fat face. He wouldn't. But it "Mm. I know." She grinned, and leaned up for a kiss, holding the back of his was a comfort knowing he could. neck and taking no prisoners. "Don't try that angle. I'm not recruiting for you. She likes machines. She Someone catcalledwell, began to, and then realized who it was and likes engines. She's going to be in engineering on a Starship. If you convince her otherwise, I mightmight not stand in the way. But you won't." stopped, making a mangled sound like they were trying to swallow their tongue. Maybe George should start supervising what exactly happened in "Don't be so sure. The agency we're discussing can be quite persuasive." the gym when she went. The bastard had the nerve to smirk. There were students filing in, and "I'll see you at home," he said, dismissing the thought. George wasn't fighting this fight. He didn't have to: he'd won before it was even a gleam in anyone's eye. He stopped by the pizza place and brought home a large pizza, two twolitres of diet Coke, and then went up to the apartment. Sixth floor, but it was "Have a good class, Commander." nice: had room to grow, if they ever decided to have a family.

When he talked her into it, because he was going to be a dad if it killed them "How'd you know?" he asked, not turning because, hey, gun still trained on both. But he had a stealth campaign all marked out, plotted and planned him. He tried to remember if the whine of her firing had been more 'kill' or and super-password protected and embedded like an easter egg in his 'stun' and realized he couldn't. Fuck. PADD. She wouldn't put that much effort into finding it. "I'm psychic," she said. Really, the argument would be easier to make if someone could figure out "No, really." how to have a biological male of the species carry the young. He was pretty "Forgot my new spanner." sure she'd agree if he was the one who was knocked up. He was thinking about that, so he didn't notice that there were three people "Good timing." in the living room until he went into it to begin spreading out on the coffee "I know, right?" table and working. "If you're quite through?" the woman demanded in exasperation. "Can I help you?" he asked, once his throat allowed for speech. Two women "Get the fuck out of my house, stay away from my family, and stay away and one man. The standing man and woman were youngeronly a few from me. This is an official no. Press me harder. I fucking dare you." years older than him. The older woman was sitting, her hair cut short and her jaw square, a pug nose and very pretty eyes. And standing with a gun pointed at his head while Winona said all of that in a calm, even voicehe could see the appeal. Why they'd want her so And wasn't that a thing to notice, given the fact that she had a gun, not a badly, because she was so fucking dangerous like this. Psychotic: shake phaser, in her hand. Safety off, his brain helpfully noted. Awesome. your hand or stab you. "Your wife isn't home." But the linethe line between who she was and who they wanted her to "No, she's at the garage. What do you want?" bewas in the choices, and in the little decisions, and she made the right ones every day. Starfleet, Sanchez's Auto instead of whatever these people "I received a" thought she should be doing. "Why don't you people talk to her?" he interrupted, annoyed. "I mean, you "I can see when you've made up your mind," the woman said, putting her want her on your strike team or something" gun back in its holster and drawing up her coat. "Stunned?" she asked of "It isn't that at all, Mr. Kirk. We are intelligence-gathering. Your wife could her agents. work for us while performing her duties in engineering." "Out cold. Be another three hours," Winona agreed. "And you're not leaving "I'm not the one you're recruiting." them here." "Indeed not, but she is married to you." "Indeed, no," the woman agreed, and four other people came in, picked "Look. If you guys are intelligence, you should have checked up on her." them up, and exited. "We have. She is an excellent marksman, both with a pistol, a phaser, or a long-range sniper rifle. She throws knives with a 98% rate of accuracy. She does not flinch away from inflicting real harm at a short distance, something that people in this day and age of technology usually find distasteful. She has been charged seventeen times with assault, all as a juvenile. They were never prosecuted, likely due to your family's influence in the community and the collective immunization to the radical nature of her actions due to prolonged exposure. She picks up language quickly, makes decisions just as rapidly, and is an excellent judge of character." "I know. She married me." "So she did. Which leads me to my offer for you, Mr. Kirk." "Excuse me?" "We didn't just check up on her. You grew up together." "Yes." "You are a mitigating influence." He laughed, because what? "Mr. Kirk. Hiring your wife would be a risk, because as you told the Commander, she would follow her own code of morality. We want you to come on as her handler." "No." "You would make more in a week than you would in a year in Starfleet." "No." "Mr. Kirk," she sighed, and raised the gun. "I'm afraid I'm not asking." "No, you were leaving," Winona agreed from the door, and shot the two standing people. "No, don't even try it." "That was so cloak-and-dagger," Winona said after they'd left. "Right?" George demanded. "God. She was like, queen of the assassins, and she wanted to keep you as a pet." "Licensed to kill," Winona agreed, grinning. "Oh, hey, pizza." "An assassin with ADD," George muttered, and sat on the couch to begin his paper. "You'd get distracted by shiny objects." She sat behind him, crouched so her knees were on either side of his arms with her chin digging into the crook of his neck. "You don't really have to write the paper." "I really do." She pressed her face into the back of his neck, and he frowned, fingers stilling on the keyboard as he turned, slightly. "Sweets?" "Mm." "You okay?" "You almost died." "I did not." "She could have shot you." And it was true. "Yeah." "Yeah." He wrote his paper, and she slept, curled on the couch beside him. He ended up oversleeping, and then had to run to class to hand it in in yesterday's clothes. He didn't think anyone was keeping deliberate track of what he wore, but he feltscummy. Like the inside of their drain. He got rewarded when he came home and shewell, first he almost got killed by the new security system, but after that, when he made it inside, he found her in the shower.

"What, you gonna wait your turn?" she scoffed when she heard him though to be fair, she might have heard him come inhe'd sworn a lot, fucking retina scanners, what?and that was pretty much blanket permission and oh, oh fuck. Tile wasn't exactly conducive towell, any kind of sex, especially when it was wet, whichshower. But she just laughed when he lost his balance and slid down in the tub, his cock still in her mouth. When she'd kissed him after, he'd thought there was no way life could possibly have gotten better. And then Sammy'd come along. 2232.046 [2/15/32] "My parents are bringing Sam over," George says in an undertone to Winona, as the fevered pitch of admirals arguing rises impossibly higher. Problems with a Starfleet hospital: the brass are allowed to invade and be obnoxious with very little repercussion, like doctors bearing down like the wrath of a omniscient, all-powerful entity (George refuses to say "God"not after his last run out into the black, where they ran into seven of those socalled "gods"petty bastards).

The woman looks at her, eyes narrowed and forehead smoothing out. "That, Kirk? That is the best "no" I've ever gotten. All right. I'm beat. The offer's still open. Should you ever want." "Fuck off." The woman holds out her hand for the gun. Winona lifts her eyebrow. George remembers, vaguely, that he should inhale again. "No." The woman smirks, and nods. "All right then. Have a good life, Kirk." She walks out with an astonishing amount of swagger for a woman who's probably in her seventies and just got turned down cold. George is slightly impressed. And then Winona puts the gun down and puts the safety back on, and he sees red. "What the fuck was that?" he demands, becausewhat? "What did you want me to do?" she snaps, glaring at him. He can see a nurse turn on his heel outside their door and walk the other way rapidly. "Not put a gun to your head, you stupid fuck!" he shouts, waving at it and putting his other hand to his head, because now he has a migraine. "Not threaten to pull the trigger!"

George watches the woman in the back, but she just watches what's going on without intervening, which is pissing him off. This is bluster, and she's the "It was a bluff." And if she thinks he's going to believe that one who knows what actually happened because he'd bet everything he's "Bull. Shit." He notes, vaguely, that she has color on her cheeks. Good. got that she's the one behind the mission. That's good. Mostly he just wants to scream or cry or hit something "Did we get it?" Winona asks. (someone) really fucking hard. "Bullshit, sweetheart." He blinks, looking at her, then following the line of her gaze away, to the "Do you know what the code was? Romulan tech for inertial dampeners. other woman. That was it. All that for inertial dampeners, George. We endured She looks unnerved momentarily, then eases the expression into something noncorporeal parasitic beings for inertial dampeners that I could make in my sleep because that was the planet they picked for a fucking drop, and patronizing. "Get what?" you want to bitch at me for" "Whatever it was you wanted. Whatever it was that kept us out there" "We have a kid. You're not allowed to justdo stupid crazy shit like that. "You did. You did, Kirk." She slides closer without seeming to move, settling You're not." on the other side of Winona's bed. Winona's hand has curved into a fist, and he knows the woman hasn't missed it, is waiting to see which way Winona's "It's the job." gong to jump. "My offer is still open, and right now it's not an offer. You "The job doesn't supersede our family. Not by a long shot. And if you're know sensitive information" thinking otherwise" "What?" George snaps, frowning at them both. He hates thislike he's "Then what?" She's got her hand wrapped around the gun. He doesn't feel playing catch-up. Like they started this conversation and then put it on hold threatened, god, he's just getting progressively more pissed that that's what for four months or so. she's clinging to, when he's holding on to the sheets on her bed like a man "I had to pull apart the ship to keep it going. There were a few lines of really trying not to drown. interesting code," Winona explains. "Then maybe we gotta reevaluate shit," he says unsteadily. "And now I'm telling you that we're not suggesting or asking nicely anymore, "You're overreacting." Her voice has changed. Now it's cold. Calm. Kirk. You're being drafted. I've cleared it with Starfleet" Still. Afraid. It loosens something. Thank fuck. "No." "You put a gun to your head with every intention of pulling that trigger!" he yells, gesturing wildly. "Are you fucking stupid? Of course I'm freaking out! I "Kirk, I don't think you heard me." don't want to be left here alone, you psychotic!" It happens fast enough that George kind of wants to sink through the floor There's a long silence. One of the monitors informs them both insistently when he recalls it later. At the time, he's just completely confused and that her heart rate is elevated. He feels like he's going to throw up. He freaked out. wants to look at her, to find the answers in her face because this is them, She has the woman's gun, and she's pointed it at her own head. and he's always been able to read her. But for the first time he's afraid of "Listen to me when I say this, because I'm not saying it again," she says in a what the answers will be: that this will be the time it's too much. That he quiet, cold voice that makes his shoulders stiffen, breath caught in his throat can't take it anymore. That she can't give him a reason to keep coming like a stone. "I am not joining up with you people. Of a crew of four hundred, back. four of us are still alive. I'm okay with it being three. You touch my family, He stares at the wall so hard that colors start undulating at the edge of his you touch my crew? I pull the trigger. This is a no. This is a complete and vision. Greens and purples and blues. Probably from exhaustion. Shit, when utter 'no.' Do not pass Go, do not collect $200 dollars. We understand each did he last sleep? other?" "George." Soft. "What?"

"I almost died because of three lines of code and twelve schematics. We lost 396 people." He exhales, takes the gun away and tucks it into the back of his pants before taking her hands. Yes. "Yeah." "I had to break the ship and put it back together. We were dead in the water so many times, and they were all so fucking useless so I had to do everything andthey had families. I had to watch them die, after the attack. We barelythey looked like our people. I killedI killed a lot of them. "And then we had to jettison themcouldn't keep the fuckers on board and we didn't have enoughThey were just floating by the viewing screens, and it could have been me." He watches, quiet, waiting for her to go on, to see if she willcan. Sometimes it takes a while for the story to come out. Sometimes she doesn't just drop it all in the open. He can wait. And then her expression starts to crumble, and he can't bear it. "But it wasn't." "But it wasn't," she repeats, raising her hands to her face. She leans over, and he moves to sit on the bed, wrapping her in his arms and holding on just as hard as she does, letting her cry into his shoulder. Scream. Scream like she's not ever, ever going to stop, and thisthis he knows. Her breath is hot and wet, when she finally stops screaming and sobs like she can't breathe: won't ever be able to. He's not five anymore. "It's okay," he says softly, because it will be: because he fucking says so. "It's okay, sweetheart. It's okay." It's an hour before Stacey brings Sammy inRen's already come on for the night shift, but Winona grins at Sammy and lets him poke at the sensors stuck to her body. Listens to him talk and laughs and seems whole. George wouldn't have done it. He wouldn't have broken his family. He justneeded to know that she wouldn't either. 2232.060 [3/1/32; age 28] "So, I bought the Connor house." "That place is a mess." "Yes, but I figure, we put all that work into it when we were kids, I've always had a fondness for it. So I bought it." She gives him a dark look. "Becky Garland had better not show up with a casserole." George grins. He's not going to say she did. He's going to really enjoy the moment Winona walks into the house, which he's moved most of their furniture into from the apartment in San Francisco, and finds about a dozen or so casseroles and pies. She's back to normaleven the PT says that she's all good to go. Starfleet still gives them medical leave. Their next assignments will bewell, he's going to be XO on a research vessel, the USS Kelvin. "Okay, so it's not bad to be here," she admits, sitting on the bed. "You only say that because the entire county knows you're back." "I like the notoriety," she agrees, stretching out. He leans in the door, from the bathroom and enjoys the view. Sammy's in bed: worn out from a day of swimming and picnics on the English River. "Yeah, well. All of San Francisco knows your name at this point, all of Starfleet does, and apparently it's going around the galaxy like wildfire." "What can I say? I just have one of those personalities." "You're so insane." "You say that a lot." "Remember the time you almost drowned Owen?"

"He felt me up." "I know. We dared him to." She gapes, and he laughs and stretches out beside her on the bed. "George Kirk, you asshole," she chuckles, wrapping an arm around him. "See, everyone thinks you're the good guy" "Only in comparison." "That's what I'm saying," she agrees, and leans in for a kiss, long and filthy, licking into his mouth and sucking his bottom lip, nipping at his tongue when he slides it into her mouth, fingers pushing the tanktop up. "You realize we've been doing this for thirteen years?" he asks. "Oh my god, what the hell is wrong with you?" she demands. "Put that fucking mouth to good use before I go see if someone else is interest oh fuck!" George moves fast when properly motivated, burying his face between her legs and sucking her clit. He rubs his thumb just over, hard, how she likes, and strokes his tongue over her clit. Her thighs tighten around his head and then relax, and Jesus motherfuck, good shit. She's wet and rolling her hips down against his face. There are days he likes to stay down there, make her come again and again and again until she doesn't know anything but his name, looking completely wrecked and fucked out in his bed. They've got real jobs and a kidthey're not teenagers anymore and everyone around him his whole life has implied either in word or action that thisthis need would fade. Or at least its persistencethat it'd stop being fun or it wouldn't be enough. "I'm gonna fuck you," he decides, and she laughs, pulls him up to lick his face clean. He pulls back, pastes a look of uncertain concern on his face and says in a gentle, patronizing voice, "You're healthy enough for" He doesn't finish the sentence. Doesn't get a chance, because she pulls a ninja move and he's on his back with her slowly settling down on him, hot and wet and fucking perfect. God, yes. This. She leans over, her breasts grazing his chest and god, he wants to suck, and then she's reaching up, putting his hands over his head and holding his wrists as she rides him. He catches a nipple, sucks it and grins, just a little, as she throws her head back and groans, a deep sound that shudders through her whole body. She's grinding her hips against him, twisting just enough that this isn't just about her getting offisn't her using him, even though it looks that way and he appreciates that: the show of it. "Fucking healthy enough," she mutters, and he laughs, snaps his hips up into her and her rhythm stutters, just a bit. "Come on, sweetheart," he coaxes, arching up to bite her neck, then worry the other nipple. She's so fucking gorgeous. "Come on. Come on, baby. Come for me. Now." And she does, arching over him and grinding down on his dick, against his pelvic bone as she shudders and clenches. "Haven't you come yet?" she pants, eyes dancing at him once she's done, and he glares at her because he's close, so fucking close, if she'd just fucking move already. Because she's awesome, she does, bouncing and griding and twitching her hips and oh, fuck yes, there, and he's shooting his load into her so hard it feels like getting punched in the gut. # Three weeks later she gets the news that she's pregnant. They really should have seen that one coming. She glares. He starts buying things and he and Sammy start working on the nursery. Sammy is so excited at the idea of a little brother or sister, comes

to the doctor's appointments. He's so excited Winona can't even manage to be annoyed for more than a month. Until the casseroles start coming in. Honestly, when they both end up having to go to the Kelvin it's almost a relief, except for the part where they're leaving Sammy. There are only so many times he can stop her from killing bearers of casserole. If she's trying to kill Hastings, well. That's deserved. He can get behind that. "All I'm saying," she says as they head towards the Earth Spacedock for the year tour (which is longer than it should be, and he's going to figure out how to shorten it because who the fuck wants to have a baby on a space ship?), "is that the man is taking drugs. I could cut it with bleach." "Everyone would know it was you, sweetheart." "That's true. I could make it an accident." "Isn't that a contradiction in terms?" "Stop arguing semantics with me." She puts her foot up on the seat in front of her, and the young kid in the seat glances back. Oh, he's new. Fresh out of commandmaybe still in command school. George smiles slightly, in apology, and the kid looks away fast. George looks at Winona, who's looking over the shuttle to see who's in her department: what idiocy she's going to be saddled with. A few people stopped bythey'd been at docking and there'd been a shout of, "Oh, thank fuck it's Kirk! Hey, Jennings! Kirk's here! We're fucking saved, man!" and George had known it wasn't one of his people. His people didn't swear so openly: only engineers were that bawdybecause they could get away with it.

to feel claustrophobic on a planet. That he can only breathe in the wideopen expanse of space. She looks at him, then beyond him at the doc and beyond, and grins a little, almost in spite of herself. "I do like this part." Yeah. So does he. A Moment's Surrender waldorph Summary: "Sweetheart, can you hear me?" Notes: (See the end of the work for notes) Work Text: She thinks she should have done something. Forced the pilot to stay. Wrench herself off the bed after the baby was born and go tearing through the ship, grab his stupid ass and bring him with her. She should have. But she'd been in labor for 45 hours. She was exhausted, in pain, and he wasand he was leaving her. That was never a fight they'd had: never part of the playbook. They both knewhad knownthat she "Sweetheart, can you hear me?" "I can hear" "I love you so much. I love you."

"I hate Sadar," she'd said. "But not as much as I hate Hastings, so maybe I'll Her nightmares are of screaming metal and shattering aluminum and a computer saying "Impact alert" in a dispassionate voice. let him live." George had laughed and seen incident reports on his horizon. Gigs and gigs of incident reports. "Sweetheart," he says, "aren't you going to have your hands full anyway? You know, too much so to have time to kill anyone?" They bring her casseroles. She doesn't understand this fascination with casseroles.

She ends up blasting one out of Becky Hallet ne Garland's hands. "Yes. Because the Kelvin is a fucking terrible design and there are too many "Leave me the fuck alone," she snarls, and Becky flees. people on it. On the other handstress relief." She goes back inside to Sam, Jim still on her shoulder. "There is that," he agrees, watching the dock come closer, something unfurling in his stomach. He fucking loves his job. And hell, it's only a year, and then he can take a teaching job for a few years or somethingstay dirtside to be with the kids and she can go into the black. They'll figure it out. For the first six weeks of his life, she doesn't put Jim down except to bathe him and change him. She won't let anyone touch him. Heh. Kids. If he didn't know she'd cut his hand off, he'd touch her belly. She Jimmy saves her life. Maybe that's terrible, that it was Jimmy and not Sam, barely tolerates it when he rests his head there when they're asleep. But but Sammyshe's been gone a lot of Sammy's life: a lot of his recent he's figured out a technique: sleep with his head in her lap and he can be memories have her absent from them. close to the baby and she doesn't get annoyed. Perfect solution. Only it's hard to execute properly. Still. Kids. They could stop at twotwo's a good But when she has Jimmy cradled against her chest or tucked against her number. Sammy and a little brother or sister. A good-sized family. shoulder ("Tiberius, you kidding me? No, that's the worst. Let's name him after your dad. Let's call him Jim.") "You're grinning like an idiot." "Why shouldn't I grin?" "Because Hastings is a fuck-up." The man in question turns, looks at her, and then looks absolutely horrified. Winona smiles meanly at his back as he beats a hasty retreat. He's probably going to Robau to protest his 2IC. Robau's a good guy: he'll tell Hastings where to shove it. Robau's the one who, when they saddled him with Hastings, put in a request for Winona specifically. Smart guy. "Life is good, sweetheart," George informs her, because fuck all it is, all of space opening up around them. Sometimes, on Earth, he thinks it's possible Anne and Tiberius come around. They take care of the kids when she can't. She runs. She runs to San Francisco and considers going. Keep running. Taking her phaser and ending it. Gets a hotel room and drinks herself into a stupor. Cries and sobs until she can't breathe, until she's popped blood vessels in and around her eyes and dried her skin out with tears. She's puffy and swollen, and a maid comes in and finds her shaking in the shower stall under the water.

The girl pulls her out and helps her get into her bathrobe. "My husband died," Winona says. It's the first time she says it. It's not the last. She shifts the cadence: hones it into a weapon. Brown is sitting on the bed: the agency recruiter. Winona's spent her whole life saying no to this woman. "Yes," Winona says. Brown kisses her, strokes her cheeks and her hair as the maid dresses her. Winona shakes and lets them, lets them move around her and comfort her in their own way. George, that fucking asshole, is still dead. The hearings are shit, and she doesn't have George anymore to gauge where "normal" is. She goes to Pike's dissertation presentation. He plays a recording of the conversation and she goes and picks two guys up in a club. One guy fills her ass while the other fucks her cunt, and she's stretched and there's a hand around her neck just too tight, and she's fading in and out, but this is what she wants. They pay her, the fuckers. She rolls over on the bed and laughs and laughs and laughs at the ceiling. George is dead. She's not sure that she's alive. She marries Frank in the town offices. Frank gives her whatever she wants. She marries him because she has to tie him to her children. Frank is a good man, he reminds her of Tiberius. He's already good with Sam and he will be with Jim. George is dead. But Tiberius was a good father, and Frank will be a good father. She's shattered now into so many pieces she can barely scrape them together: she holds them in her hands and cuts herself on their jagged edges. But Frank is whole, and he's a good man, and maybe somehow he'll be enough.

The assholes blow themselves up, and you're left trying to remember how to breathe. Jim has to be self-sufficient. She won't apologize for running from him. She has dreams about George coming back. She wakes up sobbing. That never ends. It doesn't lessen over time, in intensity or frequency.. She never manages to stop waking up sobbing. The thing, they say, that makes her exceptional is that she can layer in failsafes. She and Jim speak in codes; she and Sam speak in codes. No one else would think to speak of shows that have been dead for 300 years; no other culture would know to mimic it. Kodos forges one transmission: "I'm good, Mom, stop worrying." She had called him Rodney McKay, which always makes Jim indignant. She hijacks the fucking cruiser when she realizes nothing's going to get done. Tarsus wasn't the first time she killed someone for her boys. But it was the first time they knew. There was a woman who wanted to train Sam, a few others who went after them: Winona makes enemies like most people make their beds. Kodos dies and Sammy is there for Jim. Big Damn Heroes. Winona plays the part well. Seven other high-level officials close to Kodos are dead within 24 hours, and Kodos' pregnant widow is relocatedto where, no one knows. Winona is very good at her fucking job. Both of them. The marriage lashes Frank to the boys, but Winona is never going to love him. She's never going to be faithful to him, because what is there to be faithful to? Maybe she expected him to know that, but it's likely she didn't care. She miscalculated: he's not like Tiberius (she doesn't speak to him, not since Jimmy almost froze to death. He tried, once. She shot him. It was set to stun).

He's not, in the end. Frank's not George, and Jim's too like her, and Frank is He's pathetic: they've broken him and left a husk behind. a man who is disappointed by his dreams. There are days she wishes she'd killed him, but Riverside was where she He always wanted her, but he never really had her. She's always been and George grew up, and she's not going to pollute its fields with blood. George's wife. She's not going to do that, no matter how tempted she is. "There's no one to tell you 'no,'" Brown says. "I can be that for you." Brown is seventy, but her tongue knows how to delve in and her teeth drag over Winona's clit, and it's not enough: not the same. But she's in free-fall. She loves her boys, but she doesn't know how to be there for them. Jim is so much like her it's frightening, but there are parts of him that reek of George. Winona couldn't make people like her, the way George did. Jim does that. Everyone loves Jim right up until the moment they don't. Right up to the moment he turns into a shadow of her, and that scares her enough to run, because she won't let him be her. He can't get tied up in someone else: he can't be half of a whole, because you lose that other person. They hint about Jim. He's her but he's George: he's reckless and too fast but people like him. It starts when he's 15. He leaves the house and agents sleep with him. Happens three times. The first two he doesn't remember. The third he blinks at and then laughs at, the way he'll laugh at Pike. "Tell Gorman the answer's 'no,'" Winona says, stepping out of the shadows as the agent buttons his fly. Young. Pretty. It'll be such a shame when he's rotting in the ground. The agent tells Gorman the answer's "no," and then Winona shoots him in the back of the head. She uses a gun: bullets. Spray of blood hits Gorman in the face, and he looks at her.

"Understood." Jim's 18. They never try again. She never worries about Sam. Sam is smart, and stable, and damaged but not fucked up. Sam doesn't respond to Jim like George responded to her. Sam is stable, and she wonders how they did that: how she and George created something like that. George should have lived: he would have done this better. She doesn't know how to do exist on any lesser scaleGeorge was always the thing that grounded her. She saves the galaxy and the Federation and does the dirty work and works on the starships. She can't do little moments: forgot how or never learned. Sam has a family. She knows he thinks he's more like his father: that they were the two sane people in the land of the insane. She lets him think that. Doesn't say, "You don't understand how fucking crazy George was." She doesn't talk about George. She can't bear to use the past tense. And she thinks it makes Sam feel better, to think that. Winona dies on a planet that reaches into her head and puts her back into the past: George doesn't die on the ship, he gets off, they raise their kids together. He becomes a Fleet Admiral, she designs ships. Sam and Jim's lives are relatively the same. She sobs at him, when she wakes up in the morning. They're in their bed, and she takes a second to rouse from the dream. He leans over, sleepwarmed and lazy and pulls her in as she screams against his neck because he left her, he left her.

"Shh, sweetheart. Shhh. Can you hear me?" Gentle, loving. God, it was all a When Jim goes to Starfleet, she looks at him, in his cadet's uniform, and sees George. There is a scream of metal and a transmission cutting out and bad dream, thank fuck. "I love you. I love you so" she grips the railing hard and thinks: this is what his death looks like. Winona Kirk's heart stops. She doesn't stop by, though she'd maybe planned totakes off, goes to talk She's sixty years old. to Gorman,who took over for Brown. They never find her body. "Aren't you ever tempted?" Gorman asks, her hand fisted in his hair, his mouth shiny with her juices. "Don't you ever want to take over the world?" "What would I do with it?" she replies, and drags him back in to finish the job. She wants to kill Spock. She thinks he knows it. Someday her son is going to die alone, just the way his father did, and it will be the fucking Vulcan's fault. She does think it's funny that Spock's existing parallel to another version of himself. Jimmy doesn't tell, but she's not stupid, and Sarek can't help but look at the older Spock in wonder sometimes. Summary: "I am #1. You may not have me." This is the story of Number One. Notes: underaged features sex implied at the age of 13 and from there on in. It's a cultural norm, but if it squicks you, pass this by. (See the end of the work for more notes) Work Text: She is born Idri3.

Mockingbird waldorph

Winona does a lot of work on New Vulcan, and she sees things people don't She is born to the household of Bredrid4, a female of the species. She is want her to see. Things that Vulcans especially wish they could keep raised by Bredrid4 and her partner, Nori2, in Ilyria's capital city of Iarsus. hidden. Idri3 is genetically engineered specifically for intelligence, and leadership qualities. Her particular cocktail also includes a musical inclination and a small frame; the build of a dancer. She likes Pike, but it kills her to be near him. On Ilyria, they have been genetically engineering the next generation for Likes him: Pike, she doesn't want to kill. 300 years. The risks of inbreeding and eugenics, the former option before But Pike loved George, and George liked Pike and it should have been the technology grew to accommodate the end goal, bred simpletons or George doing all the things Pike did, on the Kelvin. weaklings prone to disease. George should have gotten out. Hardly fighters: hardly future leaders who could stop the war. It almost lost them the war. And then everything changed, and they have mastered themselves. Jim is a great captain. He's got a good crew: he's not She only ever had The only flaw is that all Ilyri have brown eyes and hair, and fair skin. It is George. universal. He's self-sufficient, and where he isn't he has Chris Pike, Leonard McCoy, Nyota Uhura and Spock. She had no one to fall back on: no one to keep her Bredrid4, the female who birthed Idri3, was engineered to be a breeder. She has wide hips and a gentle disposition. She lives off of the government's steady when the world tripped. money, as is her right as a breeder. Her wife, Nori2, is a chef. Her genetic Jimmy does. code is less modified and specialized. Doesn't mean that when she hears that he's fucking bonded himself to that Idri3 looks at them, even when she is very young and the piano is Vulcan she doesn't draw out a completely workable plan to kill that thundering under her small fingers, and thinks that they are happy. That sonovabitch. their heads are quiet, and have no need to seek more: that their entire world She hates Spock. She really does.

can be condensed into each other, and perhaps superfluously the three children in their care. On Ilyria, there is no concept of "parent" or "sibling." Idri3 may eventually choose to marry Idri1, the eldest boy of the house, or perhaps Rendai2, the girl down the road. When she is 15, Idri3 will leave the house of Bredrid4 and Nori2 and not return: not think upon them again. She will lead her own life; on Ilyria relationships are fluid and people are not to be grasped too tightly. The war dictates such. The dancing helps her to think. It is nearly a compulsion, to reach out with her body and feel the music flowing through her. She does not know how reasonable it is: what purpose it could serve, but it brings her joy, and she thinks perhaps this is one thing they could not program. This is something for herself. She decides, at age four, that she will always dance. And she does. The war between Ilyria and her sister planet, Bynes, has been going on ever since the two managed space capability. It started over colonization disputes nearly a millennia ago, but the wounds are fresh and ever-present. "The Bynesians killed my husband," a soldier might say. "They destroyed the city," a breeder might answer. There had been peace, for a time: strenuous and engineered by the Federation's best negotiators and diplomats. On the day Idri3 was born, Induri, a city far to the south, was destroyed. 22 million lives gone just like that, and the fury started again. Bynesians have bluish skin, and their people, it is said at least, are not genetically altered. Their focus lay not on their people, but on their weaponry. Different tactics.

Director and General: civilian but untouchable. There has not been a #1 in three generations. Idri1 is killed when he is completing a training exercise in a battle compound. He decided to become General, and Idri2 and Idri3 have had no reason to doubt he would succeed, provided he lived. Bredrid4 hangs the blue ribbon of loss in their window, and Idri2 becomes Idri1 and Idri3 becomes Idri2. It is the way of things. Idri1-then-2 balks. He glares and says that they live in a culture of forgetting: that this is part of their problem. They do not value the individual. Nori2 slaps him across the face, a crack which resonates and stills Idri2. Bredrid4 sits carefully still on the couch, and Idri1 stares up at Nori2. "I am your superior in every way," he says. He is twelve now: three years from being independent. "If I should make you disappear, you would stay gone." "Stop," Idri2 says, and her voice does not shake like Bredrid4's hands do, and her eyes do not well as Nori2's do. She suspects that that is part of her genetics. She stands and puts her hand on Idri1's arm. "Stop." He subsides, looking at her, and then pulls away to go to his own rooms. What he does in there she could not say: cultivates his cult of personality, most likely. He is popular in school: he charms everyone, and they listen to him, even when he suggests things which result in disciplinary action. He never gets caught: is never implicated. Such is their classmates' loyalty to him. And when he is sloppy and fails to clean up his messes, Idri2 is there, with a look or a quiet word, ensuring that those who might hesitate do not.

Idri3 listens as Idri1 explains this, his eyes far-off as if contemplating the two Idri1 is taken from them at night. tactics: weighing each. Director comes to their home when Idri2 is nine. Idri1 is thirteen. "We are the better for it," he decides. "Perhaps not," Idri2 disagrees from the doorway, his face very serious. "They have identities: we have titles which shift." "Become Director, then," Idri1 scoffs, and smiles at Idri3 as if to share the joke, but she does not find it funny, and neither does Idri2. "I will," he says. She believes him. She is six, Idri2 is ten, and Idri3 is twelve. Ilyri society is led by Director. The title stays; the person changes. The current Director is a woman of 57: Ilyri do not live to be 70, and those who are coded for leadership and intelligence do not live past 60. She is searching for Successor: she has left it very late, and Idri3 can feel the hum of anticipation among her classmates and instructors. The hope. Idri2 stands beside him, and he holds her hand too tightly as Director speaks of his new path. How he will be known not as Idri1, but as Successor. "You are now Idri1," Director tells Idri2, who nods, and becomes such. Successor frowns, a quick jerk of his lips. He would have a name for his own, and give her one. He is almost to a title that will not be taken from him until he is dead: she thinks he should be pleased, or at least grateful. He is too different: perhaps Director has made a poor choice, but it is too late to raise doubts. "I will send for you," Successor promises, kissing her cheek and ignoring Bredrid4 and Nori2. "I need you."

It is a preposterous statement. He does not. Perhaps he thinks that he does, because she remembers the details he forgets; because she is calm where he is not; because she is deliberate and determined where he is sometimes unsure. She complements him neatly, but he must not need her. He must This Director did not take a Companion, or if she did, Companion was lost in grow to forget that need as a matter of necessity, or else be replaced and the battles. When Companion exists, they are intellectual matches and purged from society. Know that he is capable on his own, if only he would complements to Director. An alignment of minds and personalities. There is acknowledge it. speculation that it is implemented into the genetic code, but Idri3 has She goes up to her bedroom, and dances for two who will never sleep in the studied the codes and finds that this is not possible. Even at seven she is rooms on either side of her, the music from her audioplayer thrumming aware that it would be a waste of resources to attempt to code in through the air, consoling her. compatibility specific to another person. Pheromones among their species is The first Idri1, she thinks, would be proud of Idri2-then-1-then-Successor. difficult to cope with: for all they appear Humanoid, Ilyri are not Human. #1 is not a permanent figure in the hierarchy. #1 is the best of the people: the smartest and most ruthless; a miracle worker. #1s of history have saved the planet and have written treaties with the Federation; forwarded genetic engineering and saved them from themselves. They are equal or above She should not remember these things: Bredrid4 does not remember Idri1 the first. Nori2 does not either. Theirs is a culture of forgetting by necessity; in order to survive. It is culturally reinforced.

Perhaps her hardwiring is skewed: perhaps IdrSuccessor was a bad influence. General comes to Idri1's school and watches her in battle simulations. Idri1 is excellent at strategy, and General indicates that she might be looking to Idri1 to groom. Idri1 nods thoughtfully, and instructs the right flank to close in while the left flank draws back. "You know this war will not be ended with soldiers," Idri1 says to General. "No," General agrees, and if she is taken aback by Idri1's disregard for proper discourse, which dictates she should not speak to General directly, she does not show it. "How will it be won." It is a question, but not phrased as such. "By destroying the planet," Idri1 says simply. "A meteor or large bomb will do. We should be working on cloaking devices or disruptors so that they do not see it coming, or are incapable of stopping it." General looks at her for a long moment. "He did not lie." Idri1 does not need to ask who she refers to. "No," she agrees. "It is not in his nature to lie." Successor is wildly popular with the people: his speeches give hope while resting on fact: on reason. He appeals to them all, and his cadence is like music that makes her want to dance when she hears him. General departs, and Bredrid4 and Nori2 are pleased to hear that they raised two exceptional children. Their income from the state increases, and they live with prestige and wealth. Many parental units do not have such success, and they smile and shower her with affection, trying to make her laugh as they did when she was very young. She has reached sexual maturity and taken three lovers (a female and male to determine which she prefers, if either. Male, as it turns out, and the second was for pleasure, not experimentation); she will be independent in two years. She sees no reason to indulge them and become a child again. "You're so cold," Idri1-now-Successor would laugh sometimes as they sat together at the piano, his fingers clumsily attempting to keep up with hers. "Perhaps," she would always reply, "they mixed my genetics with Vulcan." "How very logical," Idri1-now-Successor would tease, and she would smile slightly, and he would look satisfied. She is not cold, she is simplyuncompromising. On the day Idri1 turns fourteen, Guard234 and Guard382 come to escort her to the Director's Compound (D.C.). "We are here to fetch #1, formerly Idri1, formerly Idri2, formerly Idri3," Guard234 says. Bredrid4 makes a thrilled gasp, but Idri1, now #1, merely nods, fetches her bag, and walks to the transport, which takes them to D.C.. She does not know if this feeling is relief, anticipation, or satisfaction. Perhaps it is all of them. Perhaps it is fear at the overwhelming responsibility. Perhaps she is nervous to see him after an absence of years. Successor-now-Director is waiting at the top of the brushed metal stairs and embraces her as though they have not been separate for five years and are still children. As though he has not been Director for a year. "Are you going to win me a war, #1?" Director inquires. He is eighteen, now, and looks weary, as all Directors do. He is much loved by the people. He requires a haircut. She looks at him for a very long minute. "Yes," she replies, finally, because there can be no other answer. He smiles again, and pulls her inside. He is much taller than she.

Her room is adjacent to his, and her access codes get her everywhere. She spends 24 hours learning his schedule, the following 24 reviewing the battle plans, and the next 24 hours adjusting. "I forgot you did that," he says from her doorway, and she stills, bent in two, peering at him from behind her hair. "Have you forgotten social courtesy?" she inquires. "I am Director, I may have all." "I am #1. You may not have me," she replies, and he laughs, then. "Oh yes?" "Did you want something?" She puts her other foot on the floor and straightens. He shakes his head. "General says you have a final solution." "I have had this solution for years." "You needed time to hone it, and we needed the time to accommodate it," he replies, and closes the door behind him, sitting on her bed. "And I needed time to come to terms with it." "You will save billions." "By killing billions." "It must end," she says flatly, looking at him. He nods, bracing his forearms on his knees and looking, for a brief moment, defeated. Inert. She wants to punch him. "I came in here to tell you to eat something," he says, rousing himself and smiling. "You don't eat enough, I've been informed." "My eating habits are perfectly adequate," she protests. "Your definitions of 'adequate,' as I recall, were always suspect," he returns, and leads her to the dining room. As they eat, 831,300 civilians are killed when Bynes strikes. He stands, shoulders straight, and she watches, still seated, as his eyebrows lower. General is watching, at parade rest, careful, but #1 feels no apprehension. He needed a push: Bynes provided him one. "It is us or it will be them," Director says, hard as his dark eyes seek Bynes out in the sky through the window. "I will end this all." So melodramatic: that is not his place. She is #1 for a reason. If anyone will end it, it will be her. It is merely easier on both General and herself if he is complicit. "Yes," she agrees, and he turns to her in surprise. "And then the Federation will hang you." "The Federation had their chance to end it." "That will make a very good defense, I am sure of it." "Do not mock me." "You require mocking. You are ridiculous," she informs him. General respectfully leaves, and #1 presses a kiss to Director's lips and shakes her head. "Ridiculous," she repeats. The difficulty is that despite the plan, they need time to work on the technology. One year turns into two, and her room becomes empty with disuse: her slippers are at the door with Director's boots, her notes have circles from his coffee cups. Director flinches, at times, when a direct hit is scored and the number of fatalities reaches the millions on Bynes. He is compassionate. He dislikesthat it happens at all. "That is why he needed you," General says, as they watch Director walk out of the war room after a very productive day. She is playing a remembered

piece on an imagined keyboard on the edge of the table. "It's strange that you are not Companion, though." "No," #1 says, lips quirking. "It is not so strange." She has maintained that: words to editors of papers and setting members of parliament who might balk straight. She will not be diminished. She is #1, and sixteen, but she is also Director's. He has someone to care for. He plays piano with her and for her as she dances, while on Bynes millions die in agony over the course of the three years it takes to complete their development of the final solution. Director becomes more and more agitated in #1's 19th year. They had believed themselves to be winning: numerically it was certain. They had not, however, counted upon the desperation of a dying people. Mutually assured destruction no longer matters to the Bynesians; their own destruction is ensured regardless of whether they act or not, and it appears that they are aware of that. They have weaponry which would destroy both planets, and it becomes a race against Bynes' desperation. "You know what we must do," #1 says, when the technology is complete. She will launch in four hours: the war will be over in six. "I do not wish to discuss it," Director snaps, untangling their legs and sliding from their bed, pulling on his clothing and leaving the room. She sighs in exasperation.

start anew: to be part of the Federation as we have never before been. Perhaps we will change our customs: perhaps you will be the last #1 and I the last Director, or perhaps the names will continue as titles, and we will be able to claim the luxury of identities we carve out for ourselves. General has already professed guilt to the Federation, and they seem to be willing to accept that she is to blame. She says you would want it thusly, and I am incapable of denying you anything. Be our ambassador: show the Federation who we are external from our conflicts. Be well, Beloved. Be safe. It is a lie: his incapable of giving her her own way: if she had had her way she would have accepted blame. She has four neat scars in a cluster on her abdomen, and she traces them with her fingers and wonders that she is alive. Be our ambassador. It is not much, but it will do. She is genetically incapable of failing her people: if she is to be Starfleet's first Ilyri member, she will be flawless. The General is convicted of war crimes. She is sentenced to life in prison: it will be two years, as she is 68. #1 does not investigate further: it was made clear that she was to make a clean break. She does not know that she would know how to continue to live on Ilyria, with the war over. She was created to end it: not to exist in its aftermath.

She has no desire to hover over the engineers: four hours is the timetable. It Director was. She will leave him to it. requires that amount of time to set it up. She doesn't mourn the loss; she doesn't know how. Four hours to systematically target and hack all of Bynes's sensors, rendering them blind when the 2.5 square kilometer asteroid-like missile is launched at them. It will cause an extinction event: nothing will survive, and Bynes will become a roiling, violent planet full of earthquakes and volcanoes.

She is dancing as she contemplates it: weighing Director's obvious distress over her own calm and wondering which of them is the more sane. She does not hear the assassins come in, but does hear the door crash open and General and Director's shouts of concern. She is shot four times. She is conscious when Director runs in and snaps the neck of two of the assassins: General takes out the other three. The pain is like fire. She wishes to press down on the wounds as though to force the pain down: to suppress it. She cannot, and Medic runs into the room, fretting. She loses consciousness, and almost loses her life. She resurfaces 82 hours later. "It is done," General says when she sees #1 is awake. "He did it." "You should have stopped him," #1 snaps. "You should" "He is Director," General says. "I follow his orders." "Then you've killed him," #1 replies, and closes her eyes. "You have damned him."

Starfleet is a misery. There is no expectation of perfection, which makes her flounder academically. She finds that her cultural norms are not the norms of the majority culture: that here, sexual encounters are regularly first experienced at 16 or 17; that there are strong genetically linked family units. That those who grow up together raised by the same people would never engage in a sexual relationship. She is too strange to make any social connections: her speech is too strange and her behavior too Vulcan, but she is not Vulcan, and therefore they do not embrace her. She is surrounded by those whose lives are only beginning: she has, by their count, already lived a life and is now restarting. She has completed school, had lovers, a "husband", waged war and destroyed a planet. She finds them to be children, and for three years she cannot stop resenting them. She keeps her own counsel: shares nothing of her history, though when she takes a lover his hand always stops over her abdomen, a question in his eyes. "Birthmark," she will say, and the matter will drop. She exists here, but she is not of here: she does not fit. It is a strange thing to be so lonely.

But she is #1. She is perfect, and eventually she finds a place to occupy. It She does not want to be awake anymore. The plan had been perfect: he gets better when she is on a starship, among those who appreciate her would lead their people; help change society and perhaps give them all their abilities. identities and she would be the one to go to trial when the Federation came And then the USS Kelvin goes down. to punish them. She would be the one to stay in prison. And now She wakes on a cruiser. "Director said to give you this," Captain73 says, and hands her a letter. You will always be #1, the letter written in Director's sure, firm hand says. You will be our greatest, but we will never be the same. It is time to The Kelvin is a disaster, and it stuns her to find she is so affected by it. Perhaps because it was a present event: she was intimately involved from the attack to evacuation to the return to Earth for processing. On Ilyria,

everything was removed: it was numbers and data returns. Mechanical and binary. For the first time she understands Director's emotional response. But she has endured, and while her crew-members are falling apart around her she tends to them, because she is #1, and she is stronger than this. She once destroyed a planet: this cannot be allowed to rattle her too firmly. She watches Christopher Pike. He reminds her, in a strange way, of Director. But there is something moreinteresting about him. He takes authority where none is given, and yet, because he expects it, is given it. It is a strange loop. She thinks, as they are all ferried back to Starfleet on Earth, that she will keep busy; find another post. It does not do to dwell. And then comes the enforced sabbatical. Too much useless time, and she learns another dialect of Romulan and teaches herself to use contractions, to mimic Terran Standard. She lives two doors down from Christopher Pike, which startles her. He is a reminder, even if she does not see him.

clothes, headed for the windows. He has clearly kept the blinds drawn. The apartment smells of greasy food, spilled beer and unwashed clothing. "Wait, wh" There is a second's pause and then he is laughing, hard enough to shake with it and find it necessary to gasp loudly for breath. She tilts her head, watching him in his moment of catharsis. "You need to get out." He laughs again, but seems to agree as he says, "Yeah, well." "You're getting fat," she provokes, and is pleased to see him flinch. He is soft, not fat. "I go running every morning at 0800," she informs him, because routine is very important, and stimulating. "I will collect you." "Youwhat? No, #1, look, it'sI'm fine, I'm just, this dissertation and" "Do you think you've died and not noticed it yet?" she interrupts him flatly. She grew up in a culture where the dead were replaced and hardly acknowledged after their hearts stopped beating. She is accustomed to death: this is indulgence.

He blinks at her. "Iwhat?" She opens a shade to let the sunlight stream in. "'Excess of grief for the dead is madness; for it is an injury to the living, and the dead know it not.' An intelligent observation, for a Terran. Of course, Xenophon was alive almost three thousand years ago. Does that make it more admirable or less?" She is genuinely curious; did the idea have enough merit that no one tried to expound upon it, or were they too She speaks with the Vulcan Ambassador and meets his wife, whom she lazy to come up with anything better? Christopher still looks baffled, and she likes, and is introduced with their child, which she understands is considered becomes suddenly angry. "He is dead, and you are alive. Act like it," she to be a mark of favor in both Terran and Vulcan customs. says. "I'll return at eight. Be ready." She supposes what bothers her most is that he has the opportunity to act: to She will never be a leader of any people, but Christopher will be. She just make a difference with the dissertation they all know Admiral Archer has to get him off of his ass, first. assigned him. And yet he ismost definitely not acting. She has not even She is #1. She does not know how to fail. seen him go to the library, and while it is true that she is not monitoring his door keenly, she does speak with the librarians and several members of the Ten Year Spread (an interlude) admiralty and faculty. She cultivates these relationships carefully, for they waldorph will be needed one day. Summary: She cannot say why it annoys her so much that he is wallowing in his grief like an indulgent child. He did not lose a spouse, as Winona Kirk did. He will This is how they were, this is how they are one day be a great captain, but that will never happen if he kills himself with Notes: heart disease (the smell of greasy food wafts through her door, and she encounters the delivery people frequently enough that she knows them by leupagus wanted fluff, and it's Valentine's Day. Unbeta'd. name, and they always stop at his apartment). (See the end of the work for more notes) And then it becomes strange that she does not see him. She spends her days busy: she goes for runs and then practices at a ballet studio she finds: it is the closest she can come to the style of dance she learned on Ilyria. The dancers there laugh and do not get offended when she merely offers smiles in answer and teaches them in return for their free tutelage. Enough she decides after two months. She slips on her slippers ("Ballet shoes," Irena, one of the ballerinas, had said, but #1 prefers them: they are like the shoes she wore on Ilyria, and she crafts those connections), and walks two doors down, and knocks on Christopher Pike's door. "Um?" He blinks most unattractively down at her. He has a pathetic beard growing and his eyes are very blue, in contrast to bloodshot whites and bruised-looking skin around them. "I brought you this." She offers the PADD and he has no choice but to take it, and she slips beside him, looking about. It is vile. The mess is genuinely horrifying. The place would be better burned then attempt to clean it. "This is the list of who we should have eaten," he manages. She was going for shock value, she supposes. "I broke it down in three parts," she agrees, looking around. "Nutritional value, workforce value, and morale." "Morale?" He sounds very stupid. She reminds herself that he isn't: that it is a result of his poor attempts to become a hermit. "People who are competent and healthy but are obnoxious are very bad for morale. They should be eliminated first," she explains, stepping over old Work Text: Spock pays when they go out. He lets Jim pick their locations until he cannot bear the loud noise or the frantic energy of places Jim frequents, and then he makes him accompany him to a quiet, delicately and tastefully gorgeous location, where Jim lets him order because, as he says, "I have no idea what the fuck that even means." Jim Kirk is a loud, abrasive, brilliant Human. He slouches outside Spock's classrooms, comes in and puts his PADD (technically Spock's, and technically testing devices, but Spock is surprisingly unconcerned with technicalities where Jim Kirk is concerned) on the desk and complains about specious arguments, about idiocy in tactics, flaws in the prime directive. He paces the length of Spock's apartment, taps out idle patterns on walls as he walks through them. He is incapable of stillness. "I'm just saying, the argument is invalid because the solution is a null integer." Jim is now leaning against the island in Spock's apartment, turning over his beer, a frown etched on his face. "And it wouldn't be annoying if it wasn't in text books, you know? But nobody thought to challenge it and"

The most effective way of silencing Jim Kirk is to cover his lips with Spock's, His pants hang low on his hips, and Spock's fingerprints are pressed there to press him into a wall or against the desk, lick into his mouth until Jim is in purples and reds. clinging to him, never subdued, but acquiescent. Spock drinks his tea and finishes the meal, and Jim eyes it suspiciously. It is not that Spock does not enjoy Jim's intelligence. He does. Perhaps too "So I was thinking," Jim begins, speaking the phrase that must surely be a much, but it is impossible not to be utterly drawn to the magnetism of Jim prelude to disaster, "that Vulcans would totally dig karaoke." Kirk. He has a list of reasons he believes this to be true, complete with footnotes. Spock finds himself discussing him with Christopher Pike, with his mother, Spock mentally begins composing apologies to Vulcan High Command. even with his father. He also finds himself in low lit, smoky rooms, watching Jim laughingly sing about an American woman, and how she should let him be; get away. Spock is not given to metaphor, but the fact that planets are given feminine pronouns is not lost on him. Later that night, with Jim's legs wrapped around his hips, Jim sings in a gravelly voice in Spock's ear, tight around Spock's cock, laughing, laughing, laughing. Spock thinks this is how it should be, legs tangled and sheets twisted, Jim sleeping in the dark of Spock's room, in Spock's bed. Jim yawning in Spock's kitchen, coaxing food out of the replicator in his boxers, cajoling coworkers into taking shifts or giving him an extra, wheedling with employers or charming friends. He will someday be more: he is, now, a writhing mass of wasted potential, and Spock wants for him to be more: wants Jim to want to be more. (When I Grow Up I'll) Be A Monster waldorph Summary: When I grow up I'll be a monster (or, Tarsus IV, Illogical-style) Notes: (graphic depictions of violence: genocide situation. Underaged: nonexplicit sex between 15+ year-olds) (See the end of the work for more notes) Work Text: 1. Aaron Hallet. According to Mom, Winona Kirk shot a casserole out of Mom's hands when she was bringing her some comfort food after George Kirk had died and Lieutenant Kirk had come home with a baby. Casseroles are a thing in Riverside: new babies and funerals demand them.

But selfishly, as he makes himself tea and Jim finishes his third cup of coffee, he thinks that when Jim does reach his potential, this will be lost. Jim Aaron's met Lieutenant Kirk (and that's what everyone calls her, all of Jim will no longer be exclusively his. He will no longer. and Sam's friends. She's not "Mrs. Kirk" like all the other moms, because she's just nothing like any of the other moms), and he kind of believes it Ten Years Later: she's not reallywell. Normal. "That is your seventh cup of coffee." However, despite Mom's best efforts, Aaron's best friend is Jim Kirk from "I keep brewing it to get rid of the smell of that shit." "Vulcan tea is" "Gross, I know," Jim agrees, and sulks into his coffee. His hair is a wreck, and it is nearly noon. He has only just made an appearance. "It is not a food" "You know, we've been having this fight for ten years," Jim reflects, checking over the day's news and scowling at what he doesn't like in a manner much like Dr. McCoy's. "I think the sheer virtue of the fact that you haven't won means I have." "This argument is zero-sum?" Spock inquires, wry. Jim grins. "Um, yes?" "I had not previously been aware," Spock admits, and kisses Jim. They both, in their own way, make a face at the taste of the other's mouth. the first day of kindergarten. Sure, they hang out with Conner, Charlie, Darren and Sean, but Aaron and Jim are bests. And everyone knows that the whole group is Jim's, because Jim is the one who comes up with the crazy plans.

Mom's never been happy about it; Jim isn't ever allowed to sleep over at the Hallet house and Aaron's never slept over at the Kirks'. Jim goes home before dinner, and the only way Aaron's allowed to go somewhere with Jim is if he says he's going with Sean or Conner and Jim comes along. That way Aaron can plead ignorance and say, "He just showed up, Mom!" Sometimes that works. They're twelve; it's been working a lot less lately. Aaron thinks they're getting less cute or something, so Mom's totally catching on more. Which might be fair, because Jim's full of ideas, but they're all kinda hazardous. Like the time they all decided to try to float down the English River on a mattress that Mrs. Conley was throwing away and almost drowned Matt (who's sort of the wannabe in their group, but his mom is best friends with Charlie's mom, so they all kind of deal with him).

"The magic is gone," Jim sighs, and as he goes to shower and brush his teeth, Spock begins cooking a meal he will spend forty minutes coercing Jim See, the thing about Jim is, he's kind of a dick. He's brutally honest and acts into eating. He should visit his father, and Jim should check in with Mr. without thinking, doing things like getting into a fight or saying something Scott, but they have two weeks, and none of the crew has joined them at about what Jenna Dirth is wearing. Teachers are always sending notes the house. home with Jim about how he could live up to his potential if he'd just listen The rest can wait. (Aaron knows because he and Jim read them and laugh and throw them into the wind as they walk home from school). He's the first one to speak up "I have no idea what the fuck that even is," Jim informs him, looking at the in class, and when they're all fumbling around liking each other, Jim's the food over his shoulder. one who has a date. Aaron swears Jim figured out flirting at the age of Spock sighs, and Jim withdraws, coaxing more coffee out of the replicator, seven, and he was "dating" by the time they were nine. Right around the cajoling Mr. Scott into modifying the nacelles in a way which is not time he drove the car of the cliff. That's one of the things Aaron means; particularly legal (though it is a gray area, by sheer dint of the fact that no Jim's kind of a dick. one else has come up with the modification yet), bargaining with Admiral "You're gonna make her cry," he tells Jim. He's been watching Hannah for Pike about their next mission. the past five minutes (Aaron has, not Jim). She's totally getting up the nerve

to make the move on Jim. Of course, Jim's dating a freshman at the high school and they're seventh graders in junior high, but whatever. Brian. Brent? Brody. Jim's dating some guy with a B-name. Aaron tries not to pay too much attention, because Jim doesn't keep them. It's this weird thing where it makes him even more of a catch or something because everyone wants to be the one who makes Jim settle down. And yeah, Jim's a serial flirt: dude's been dating since first grade when he bestowed kisses on their entire class. The principal hadn't really known what to do with him, but that was before she knew Jim. Now all the school administrators know Jim Kirk.

"You'removing?" Aaron frowns at him, exchanges looks with the other guys and tries not to feel like he's just been punched in the gut. "Yeah." Pudding cup finished, Jim goes back to the food in front of him. He so totally doesn't get why this is a big deal, Aaron can see that, and it kind of pisses him off, really. "To another planet," Conner says, like maybe saying it out loud will get Jim to realize hey, maybe more than a week's notice would've been good. "Are you coming back?" Charlie demands. Jim looks at all of them like he's not sure why it's such a big deal. 'Course, Jim's mom leaves all the time so maybe Jim doesn't actually get it.

But the thing is, okay, usually dating is like "dating" where you sit together at lunch and maybe hang out after school and kiss (no tonguesalthough it's "No," he says. Jim, so you know, that's totally up for debate) but Aaron kind of thinks this Aaron's suddenly not really hungry. one is like real-dating. They went to the movies last week. "She's making me cry," Jim tells him, all mock-seriousness like Jim's cried a day in his life, flicking a glance towards Hannah from under his lashes. Aaron's decided Jim's either going to be gorgeous or fucking hideous when he grows up. He's right on the cusp: big lips, kinda big head, skinny. The hazel eyes work for him. If Aaron didn't know Jim so well, and he didn't have this hopeless thing for Jenna Dirth? He'd totally date her. Besides, even if Jim's fucking hideous, he's got enough personality to cover. Aaron steals a nugget from Jim's tray and nods thoughtfully. "In a kind of crying-in-the-soul way," he agrees. "I can see that." "My soul is weeping like aa thing that weeps a lot," Jim agrees. "Dude, that's mine." He grabs it back and shoves the whole thing in his mouth. Jim has a problem with sharing. He also has a problem not eating everyone else's food. Jim eats a ton. Because he's an asshole. Charlie watches Jim glare at Aaron (who releases the fry he'd been stealing) and then open Charlie's pudding cup. Charlie and Aaron exchange grins, because Jim's ridiculous and shameless. "Warning, warning," Conner mutters from the other end of the table, and Aaron looks over and catches an eyeful of Hannah. She comes over to their table with a smile, sitting next to Jim and settling against him. He glances at her, nods with a slight grin that makes her light up, and then turns back to Charlie's pudding cup. "Jim, the dance, right? The last dance of the school year, and Bonnie and I didn't know if you'd like, asked anyone?" If Hannah gets any redder she's going to light on fire, Aaron's pretty sure. "Um, I'm not going," Jim says around a mouthful of pudding. "Gross," Sean informs him, shaking his head at Jim as he sits down at their table. "You're so disgusting." "Dude, all over your face how do you even do that?" Conner asks Jim, throwing him a pile of napkins. Jim mostly smears it around his face. Aaron thinks there's a chance it's on purpose, but hands him another napkin. "Why not?" Hannah asks, staying on point. Right. Dance. "I've got to go to San Francisco, the shuttle leaves next week." "Shuttle? Shuttle to where?" Aaron demands. "You visiting your mom somewhere?" "No, um, you know how Kodos got the grant money to establish the colony on Tarsus IV?" "No, but whatever." Jim's a freak. He watches the news and since his mom's a lieutenant he knows all this Starfleet stuff. "Dude, all over the news. No? Whatever. Okay, so I'm going."

2. Frank Hallie. The Tarsus IV settlement has been in development on for almost ten years. The planet had to be checked out, and then they had to figure out population, and then the plug almost got pulled because it's about two months away from the nearest base and has an ionic cloud around it that disturbs most transmissions, so it's hard to communicate. Frank knows most of that because Winona had been a consultant on the board to approve colonization of the rock, and for the past few years he's been looking at holos of the damn place every time she comes home. The guy in charge of it is named Mikhail Kodos. He's married, no kids, and there'd been a kerfffle over the fact that he was a eugenics theorist about nine years ago, but there'd been inquiries and character testimonies and everyone concluded that he'd done it as a subsection of his political and sociological studies at the Kennedy School of Government. Frank can relate: people do stupid things when they're young, and Kodos had probably thought it was interesting in a morbidly fascinating way... Frank met Kodos; they went out to some fancy-pants restaurant in San Francisco and Frank spent the entire thing feeling absolutely invisible. Sam and Ivana Kodos got on like a house on fire (but that kid likes everyone). The real shocker was that as soon as Kodos had realized that Jim was the kid who liked numbers (liked, hah, like Frank hasn't repainted that damn room seven times becuase Jim can't be confined to PADDs or pencils and paper), he'd actually gotten Jim into conversation. Jim'd been ten, a year after driving Frank's car off the quarry, and Kodos, instead of realizing that this kid's kinda crazy, had wanted to know how Jim had managed to in the moment calculate when to leap from the car in order to avoid plummeting to his death. Jim'd been charmed, and the guy actually kept in touch, sending Jim puzzles he came across, and that's when the lobbying campaign started. Jim was nothing if not fucking persistent. The kid makes slide shows. With footnotes, and so Winona gave in. That was the quietest month they'd had in a long time, Frank remembers. Jim'd just been happy. "Are yousure?" he'd asked her as they'd been signing the paperwork that would make Kodos Jim's legal guardian and medical proxy when neither Winona nor Frank was available. Whichwell. Frank had his job in Iowa and Winona It'd be mostly Kodos. "It'll be good for him," she said. "He wants to go." And what Jim wants Jim gets, Frank thinks as he helps Jim pull stuff out of the car and head for the shuttle station. Jim's not bringing a lot, but Jim was never one of those kids who collected stuff. Sam is a pack rat: Jim seems like he's always about to run away. Whichwell. He's done it seventeen times and he's only twelve. Of course he started when he was five, so maybe all things considered that's not that big a number. Twice a year, about

Jim will be gone for at least five years: he'll do high school and everything there and then he'll be an adult and not Frank's problem. Frank'd be lying if the thought didn't make him feel a little relieved. Jim's teenaged years aren't really something he'd been looking forward to. "You got everything?" he asks, squinting at the people moving briskly around them. Space travel makes Frank nervoushe's never left the planet, has no intention of doing it. "Yeah, I think so. You gonna go back and get it if I forgot?" Jim asks, and there's a little smile there. "I might. Depends on what it is. Underwear, yeah." Or he'll run to one of the stores here. It important to have enough underwear: it's one of those things you don't think of until it's way too late, and where's he going to get new underwear on a newly-established colony (okay, Frank more knows this from going on vacations and realizing that, in the middle of the woods, there isn't any underwear to change, but he figures it's kind of the same principle)? "Underwear's important," Jim agrees, mock-serious, hazel eyes dancing, and Frank holds out his hand. "Be safe, Jim." He means it as a blessing and a warning: remember that you're breakable might be more appropriate. Sometimes he thinks Jim forgets that. 'Course, Jim survives things like crashing Frank's car off the quarry, so he might not be wrong. "Yeah. Well, I mean. I make no promises." Jim slings the bag over his shoulder and laughs, shaking Frank's hand.

"Yeah. He wanted to go, you know? And Jim doesn'twell, he wants a lot of stuff, but he doesn't usually fixate on shit he can haveusually it'syou know. Stuff he can't." Frank makes a face at him, looking over. "What exactly is it that he can't have?" Sam shifts, chews his crust, and then says, "Dad." Because with Jim, it all comes down to George. "I thinkI don't know. I think he just wants but he's got no idea what, so he can't have it." "Yeah, you're your parents' kid," Frank snorts, taking a long swallow of beer. "Too much for simple man like me." "Oh shut up, Frank," Sam laughs, and leans against him just enough. He's almost grown up, but he's still only sixteen: still just a kid. Sam's always felt a little bit like family; Frank can look at Sam and feel like he's his kid, even though he had nothing to do with his genes. "We'll be okay," Frank says after a while. "Yeah," Sam agrees. "Yeah." 3. Jim Kirk. Tarsus IV is a planet closer to Mercury in size than Earth, and like Earth it's mostly water. The colony is set up on a continent the size of Ireland, and it gets at hottest 77F/25C.

The colony is 8,015 people, spread along three sectors and the central compound. Sector 1 is set up for livestock, Sector 2 for orchards and vegetables, and Sector 3 for things like barley and wheat. People live in clusters of a couple hundred along the borders between sectors, dozens of "That sounds about right," Frank admits, and grins back at him. "Don't forget kilometers between each "town." The ocean is to the south, a river to the to let your mother and brother know you're alive." east, and the island stretches into infinite-seeming forests to the north "I'll try not to get too distracted." (which, rumor has it, hosts bear-like things fond of human flesh, but Jim's not buying it until he sees it). "Don't be a shit." He says it lightly, teasing just a little. It's funny how easy they are right now, when Jim's about to leave Frank's life maybe forever. The spread-out layout gives the whole colony a larger feel, which is kind of coolit feels expansive. "Can't help it," Jim says. "It's genetic." "Yeah, well. That's probably true." Frank does remember all those years of watching Winona and George tear around the town, and then the planet, and then the galaxy. Everyone in Riversidehell, the county does: it's why the whole town's wary of Jim, Frank thinks. Jim's a handful, and no one wants to have to deal with it; happy to let Frank deal. Even their grandparentsalthough Winona's never really gotten along with Tiberius and Anne. "James!" Kodos calls, and Jim turns, grinning widely. Kodos has a bright smile, genuinely happy to see Jim, running a hand through his receding red hair and then extending it to Jim. "James?" Frank repeats, wry. Who the fuck is stupid enough to call Jim "James"? Who thinks that that kid even slightly resembles a James? "He's formal, what?" Jim shrugs and then he's gone, deftly navigating the crowd, and Frank's got the drive back to Iowa. The nine hour drive, where he's mostly ridiculously relieved that Jim isn't his problem and feeling like a complete dick for thinking that. "I got pizza for dinner," Sam says when Frank walks in the door. His eyes are red-rimmed, but Frank doesn't say anything, just hands him a beer. Kid's sixteen: he deserves a beer. "Pizza's good. Anything good on the holo?" "Probably not," Sam snorts, but they settle on the couch. The house seemsquiet. Even the tension is differentthis is the tension of loss, not of "oh shit, what now?" "You gonna be okay?" Frank asks as they settle on watching baseball. The colony is led by a council of twelve advisors and Kodos, and there are weekly meetings where each one of the clusters (which are being called towns but are ridiculously small to be towns) report on what's going on in their area. Tarsus IV has the requisite small military contingent which acts as the police force.

Jim comes in with the last wave of colonists in May: people have been here since January, and Jim comes in time to see crops beginning to come in. He's got so much freedom here. All Ivana and Kodos ask is that he be home for dinner and he can explore everythingand there's so much to just absorb. Ivana laughs and makes him play piano with her and Kodos makes sure Jim's still keeping up with school work, but he wants it to be practical: knowledge is useless if you can't apply it, so Jim learns about plants and languages and politics and biology. Kodos likes to look at his math and just laugh a little in wonder. "Your brain," he says, "is a remarkable gift, James. A bit overwhelming, but remarkable." And maybe it's stupid to love it and want to impress him but Jim's never had so much attention in his life. Positive attention, where for nine months he's happy. Where people aren't full of fucking expectation and waiting for Jim to go completely insane or He doesn't have to follow fucked up lesson plans he gets to make the decisions. Choose what he wants to study, and it'she doesn't have words for it.

You're happy, right? Sam writes. Will you stop worrying?

Have you met you? Which is a fair point, all things considered: Jim kind The obvious solution is to get Starfleet here faster: it doesn't make sense
of hasn't given Sam any reasons not to worryever.

Sam, why is a raven like a writing desk? Am I supposed to be interpreting that to mean you're mad as a hatter?
Was the hatter even happy? I hated that book, Jim, you shit. I'm not reading it again. Mom's messages are more along the lines of: I'm beginning to find massive plot holes in this operation.

that Kodos called three months agoin Februaryand they haven't had a response yet. At most they're a month away from help. Not three months. And the thing is, if Kodos is just trying to sustain them until Starfleet gets to Tarsus for its scheduled check-inthat's next February, seven or so months from now. But as Jim goes back to the compound, he needs to know how long they'll all last at current rates: it's too big, and it needs to be quantified. He sits in his room on his bed with fingers that shake and eyes that burn. He pulls out his PADD and begins to pull up the reports. He hasn't hacked since he got here. The ionic cloud makes it really hard to access anything not on the planet's intranet, and Kodos gives him enough freedom to keep him occupied and what the hell does Jim care about crop yields? Except now he does, and finds them tucked away neatly. He stays up until the sun riseshe's got three PADDs and a holo display running, applying pertinent equations (8,015 settlers, crop yields down by 60%, people require 1,800-3,200 calories a day based on gender/age/activity level). If Starfleet doesn't come until the scheduled check-inthey'll all be dead, assuming that they don't find another food source. They have a month of survival left if all 8,000 settlers (because with current death rates, they're almost down to settled population) continue to eat at present rates. They're going to lose people to scurvy, rickets, kidney failure, heart failure, overexertion,babies to Vitamin D deficienciesdehydration, at least, won't be a problem: freaking river full of water right there.

George Lucas-level? Phantom Menace has nothing on this shit.

He doesn't miss Iowa, and he's not bored here, though he misses his friends, a little. There aren't kids his own age in the compound he's living in, but on balance he figures giving up peer interactions for what he's gotten is no big deal. It's probably Kodos' biggest mistake, giving Jim that freedom. Not because Jim figures things out faster when they go wrong, but because he actually thinks he can do something when disaster hits. He hasn't heard "no" in a meaningful way in nine months. By late February it's clear that something's going on with crops, because all of the towns are sending reports and people are actually coming up to the compound to talk about the rotting seeds. There are meetings called and Kodos's hair starts sticking up in all directions and the bags under his eyes grow larger. He spends less time in the evenings with Jim and Ivana. "I'm sure it's a hiccup," Ivana says, and Jim looks at her.

Pregnant women are a problem, needing at least 300-500 more calories a day than the rest of the population. That puts them in the 2,700 range, "Maybe a sneeze." which is still less than men 18-50, who are in the 3,000 range, but higher "A hic-sneeze?" she compromises, eyes dancing. She's lovely, but pale, like than kids, nonpregnant women, the elderly. Reallykids and women should a water-color. Her hair is corn-silk blonde and her eyes are a pale pale blue. be allowed to live calorically. Younger the better; anyone over the age of 50 She burns in the sun and flushes easily, and wears whites and pastels. She is using up resources without equal input back into the colonywhich is so so fucked up a thought that he shrinks from it, curls around it. swears, but it always makes him stop and stare at her because she says it so casually, and with so little inflection. She likes to make him sing with her Jim calculates the odds: they'll all starve to death. There isn't enough animal and she tinkers at the piano when he's reading; she's justcomfortable to life on this rock of a planet; they brought the livestock, and most of it's been be around. contaminated or died of starvation already. He can fix this: he's a genius, Kodos keeps assuring him and Jimhe wants to help. To save themand Sometimes he thinks with a pang about Mom, who walks around in jeans Kodos has to want to fix this so desperately. and a leather jacket and couldn't ever be described as pale; whose hands are more likely to reach for a hammer than a piano. Mom isn't comfortable, Jim works hard on how to stretch the food, but the thing isold people are a not like Ivana is. Sometimessometimes he feels guilty for thinking that. problem. Old people, people with physical diseasespeople who don't function at maximum capacity, or take more than they're capable of giving 4. Jim Kirk. are burdens on the system. It's not until June that Jim decides he needs to see how bad things really are. The whole compound is talking about the rotting crops and the virus Their right to full and happy lives, Jim doesn't dispute. It's just corrupting everything. mathematically this whole fucking situation is unsustainable. His equations sprawl; calculate rates of survival given differing variables until he knows It's really clear that it's not a "crops are failing" situation. The crops this situation and all its probable outcomes back and forth. It's comforting have failed, past tense, fact: definitive. They're yellow and brown like they get around October in Iowa, when they should be vivid green and sprawling just to know it; to have the concrete data in hand to work on those facts. The facts give parameters the solution has to be found within. Knowing the instead of shriveled and drooping. factsthe numberseven the bleak numbers: it's comforting. "It's bad," a man says bleakly, standing beside Jim. He looks too-thin, which He goes to breakfast thinking that he'll work on the solution once he eats is alarming because Jim didn't realize that it had gotten to that point where people are starving. "Some of the kidsyou look okay though. Your parents and takes a nap. have food?" That he doesn't suspect the equations will get into the wrong hands is just idiocy on his part. "I'm further in the compound," Jim says, jerking his chin, curling his fingers into fists and feeling suddenly cold. "Ihow long has itbeen like this?" 5. Mikhail Kodos, Governor Tarsus IV. "'Bout three months now. Kodos said he called for help, but so far Starfleet's That he finds it must mean something. That the boy wasn't hiding it: that got no one in the area. Sector 1 says they're losing lotta livestock over this; he wanted it found. starvation or infected, can't say." The man nods at Jim's stunned look, then The PADD was right there on James' desk, and his door was wide open; if it puts a hand on his shoulder heavily. "It'll hit you all soon enough," he said, had been a secret, James is surely clever enough to have tucked it away. and then, incomprehensibly, "Sorry."

It is one thing to know that so many are dying, it is quite another to see it laid out in hard, qualitative lines, so exhaustively turned one way or the other. James has worked entirely within the data they have already amassed, but what he has done with it; what he has proven to be their only option, is something that no one has dared yet to say. It is straightforward and unequivocating. James didn't annotatedidn't write in the margins of his own work the way he is given to annotating the books he reads. He has bell graphs for caloric/nutrition needs and age; projections of crop yields, societal input versus what they take from the colony in terms of needs. And then, deeper down the files, the entire expedition neatly divided up. Color-coded even, in terms of value to the colony. If there was ever hesitation, seeing the drain children under 7 are causing on the system, the drain of the injured, of pregnant womento see it. He copies the files onto his own PADD and heads to the council chamber. Councilor McKenna looks up. Of the original twelve councillors, only four remain: those who are on board, who understand how important this is. The first step was eliminating those who would pose an obstruction: McKenna, Havnevik, Agron and Hansard are good people. He can trust them. They have been allowed to live to serve another day. "Proceed?" McKenna asks as Kodos walks into the room. She shifts slightly in her chair to look at him. Kodos nods. "I have a breakdown of the population here," he says, handing her the PADD. "Get it to the General." "Starfleet?" "Won't arrive until February." He has ensured this: given them an adequate window of time. "We have seven months, councilors. Seven months to create a perfect world." He smiles, then. Can feel it thrumming under his skin, this warm satisfaction; excitement because he will no longer be burdened with the dregs of the population, those who are less than perfect for the running of this society. "Start spreading the rumor of plague and begin rounding up and separating the population," he instructs. When Starfleet arrives those who survive will believe entirely that those who died were lost to the fabricated plague. He can keep Starfleet at bay until the purge is through by falsifying communications; they are limited already by the ionic cloud (the only person who communicates personally at all is James, because he has managed to up the signal of his personal encryption key, but that too is easily counterfeited; rerouting his messages through a server and forging them will be no great thing, but that is worst case scenario. He believes James will understand and support him. He believes this). When Starfleet checks in, it will all be over. "What about the boy?" Agron asks. "You want to eliminate those above a certain intelligence. He is certainly over that threshold, and well over." "James is my son," Kodos says. "He did the breakdown. He is loyal." He is uncertain as to whether or not it is wise to tell of what he is doing. The boy is very independently-minded. He must be brought into understanding gently. The math indicates that he will understand the basic principle: the necessity and righteousness of this, of starting a planet with the perfect colony, and that to become a success within the Federation they must build upon perfection. He'll slowly introduce it, and after, when it is finished. After the fact, and James will understand and revel in the success of it all. He will eventually take Kodos' place and lead this world to be a shining example to all others. It will work; it has been so easy thus far. 6. Jim Kirk. "There's a plague?" Jim asks, frowning, because what?. "Seriously?"

"The crop problem is also compounded by a spore which creates a very catching disease," Kodos agrees. "We will spend the next month rearranging people's living spaces. The infected to the north, so they are downwind of us, and the uninfected to the south. We have to contain it until a treatment is developed." He sighs heavily. "Moving so many people..I never thought of eight thousand in terms of 'a lot' but it is, it really is. We've barely been here a year." "Can't you call Starfleet?" Jim demands, becauseKodos doesn't really seem all that worked up over this. Maybe it's not as bad as it sounds. Then again, plague. "We've sent for them, but the policy with colonies is minimal-interaction. The hospital is in contact with them to build a cure, which is fortunate, and if things get worse they will come." That soundsstupid, actually. Really, really stupid. "Oh." There isn't any math that can be done to make the oncoming plague any less ominous. He watches from his room as the homes to the south are closely occupied; the inhabitants clustered together on the compound's wall so that they can get food from the storage units along the south wall. To the north, the houses aren't all occupied: people are spread out over a large space. Maybe so that they can't keep infecting each other with new strains? Jim's not a med student, and there aren't a lot of medical documents he can get into (and he can't make heads or tails out of the work they're doing on finding the cure) On August 3, Kodos informs Jim and Ivana that he won't be coming home, that he has to visit the infected houses. The thing isthat seems beyond stupid, and then a littleweird, because he takes three soldiers with him. So Jim follows him. Because he's been on Tarsus for a year and a few months now, and he wants to know, and things like 'repercussions' don't exist in Jim's world anymore. He grabs a surgical mask because that's all he's seen the people distributing food wear , and Kodos isn't even wearing one. The meeting house, which used to be a storage facility but was cleared out when the relocation happened, has about five hundred people in it ; they're all crammed in, and Jim slides into the back, and There's a speech. He remembers that there's a speech, Kodos standing in front with his arms raised saying things like, "Survival depends on drastic measures. Your continued existence represents a threat to the well-being of society," and "Your lives mean slow death to the more valued members of the colony," "I have no alternative but to sentence you to death." He realizes what's going to happen before anyone else does: a sickly feeling in his stomach along with the realization that none of these people are sick. That there might not even be a plague. He gets prodded into a side room with eight other kids and a woman, and there's one soldier, and nine of them andthe soldier's got his phaser up and Jim just lunges. Pure adrenaline and shitty aim but he knocks the soldier down, fumbles after the phaser and flips the switch from red to blue and shoots. There's a moment of pure silence, and then sound filters back in: sobbing and the screaming of one of the boys, a consistent whine-thunk from other rooms, and Jim turns, fumbles for the door outside and busts it open just as the door into the room from the rest of the house busts open. "Go," the woman says, shoving Jim's back. "Go on. I'll" "What's your name?" Jim asks, because it's important to him, for no reason other than that she's going to die and someone

"Elandria al-Raddi, I've gotI have a brother in the United African States," she says, and then slams the door shut behind him. For years he'll remember that she smiled at him; he'll remember the exact curve of her lips and her dark, sad eyes. The whine-thunk of phasers going off and people screaming is muffled, now that they're outside, and Jim shoves the kids in front of him, hissing, "Go! Now!" "He's killing all those people, isn't heI mean, aren't they?" one of the boys asks. "Everyonethey're all going to die." Thomas Leighton is the boy who asked if Kodos was killing everyone: he's sixteenhis parents went missing a few weeks back and now his fosterparents are in the chamber. Kevin Riley is five, and his parents are in the chamber. He's staring vacantly at nothing, shivering. Jim pulls his black hoodie off and wraps Kevin in it; holds onto him until Tom takes him. He needs something to do: Jim gets that.

"Small victory." "I'll take what I can get." He stands up, hands Asseih to Elith. "I'll be back tonightif you" he breaks off, not sure how to phrase it without freaking the littlest kids out. "If it's not me? Hide, or run." It's a long walk back to the compound, and it turns out that Jim is insanely lucky because apparently no one cares about the jailbreak. He has to sneak into the building, the whining sound of phasers echoing in his ears, though he thinks he might at this point just be imagining it; thinking he hears it and tensing, thinking it's coming for him. He takes a shower when he's locked safely inside his room, locking the bathroom door after him and putting the stolen phaser on top of the discarded pile of clothes carefully. He shot a man todaystunned him. The shower is hot, and Jim doesn't adjust it, lets it beat his skin red hot before stepping out, changing into clean clothes and drying his hair. He glances abortively towards the mirror but doesn't quite manage to make eye contact with himself.

Elith Molson, Donovan Rezendes and Angel Suarez are all ten. Asseih Stupid. Murphy is three. Jack Vaznis, Roberta al-Hiradi are eleven and twelve. Jim's He shouldhe could leave. He could go, but thisit's not going to stop. It's not sure why they were in the chamber; doesn't want to think about it. a clusterfuck no-win, but...Dad saved eight hundred, and Jim's not going to Tom looks at Jim over Kevin's shoulder: Jim's holding Asseih, but he can't, be content saving only eight. not for much longer, because she's getting heavy in his arms. Jim's leading He pulls on pajamas and then gets his PADD, going back into the bathroom them north, keeping through the orchard where they're less likely to be and re-locking the door, sits on the shower floor, and finds the population list spotted. for the northern towns; the manifest for the meeting room tonight. He's leading them through the orchards, heading north towards the sprawling Tarsus forests, heart pounding and his head deliberately blank. One thought: get away. "We have to stop soon," Tom pants, maybe an hour later. "We can'twe can't keep going." Jim squints in the pale morning light. "There's a town," he says, pointing at it. It's a worker's town, tiny cluster of five houses, and abandoned when everyone was relocated, but it's tucked neatly into a copse of trees, so it seemssafe. In the way that suddenly nothing seems safe, nothing at all. They're silent as they go into one house, Donovan and Jack going to cupboards to see if there is any food, Angel and Roberta going to see if there are beds. "How are wedo we stay here?" Tom asks lowly as all this goes on, sitting at the table with his arms around Kevin, who is sobbing against Tom's neck. Tom doesn't really seem to notice, looking slightly dead in the eyes. Jim thinks he probably seems the same way, and sits down too, shifting Asseih in his lap. "Ino," Jim says. "I meanyes? Stay here for a day, I can get you PADDs and a lifesigns detector andI don't know, maybe food or something." He thinks he can get the Meals Ready to Eat, and load a PADD with survival tech and get them knives and "You're not staying?" Elith asks, frowning at him as she sits, wiping furiously at her eyes. "You're not going toyou're going back?" "I" Until this moment, it hasn't occurred to Jim not to go back. He has to. Now that he knows what's going on, he has to dosomething. He just hasno idea what . But starting with saving these guys is as good a placea better place than most. He thinks that this is the first time Kodos has done this, maybe he canmaybe he can save other people. "I have to try to fix this." "He killed five hundred people today," Tom points out. "But he missed you guys." Which is kind of strange and suspicious and okay, now that Jim's thinking about it this was either a really incompetent operation or he's insanely lucky. Or it's a trap. Shit. Elandria Al-Raddi was in with her two kids and her husband. The notes column says she had a history of heart disease in her family; her husband didn't have any markers, but he would have undoubtedly put up a fuss. Couples seem like they're beingkilled together. It's only 500, but any of the people who were married were killed with their spouses, so he thinks it's safe to infer. Her kids were in there with her (Jim tries to remember their faces, tries to force his brain, this fucking thing that can create numbers out of nothing and turn them into death and life, to remember two kids' faces and he can't). Her kids were there with her, and when she was separated from them she helped other people's kids get out when she couldn't save her own. Jim puts the PADD down, closes his eyes, then gets up, going into the bedroom. He takes the food out of his pockets and puts them in his book bag, wipes the PADD and the server histories. He gets his bookbag and puts stuff on itstuff he thinks might be useful like how to make a fire pit and make traps for wild animals and what's safe to eat on Tarsus that's indigenous to the planet and might not have been wiped out by the pestilence. He sleeps, for values of "sleep", doesn't come downstairs and pleads sick when Ivana comes to check on him. She smoothes a hand over his forehead and cups his cheek and nods. "Do you think you can eat anything?" she asks. "MRE, maybe, for later, if I get hungry," Jim says, and Ivana brings him one of each; twelve in all. That night around midnight he puts on all black, slides the phaser into the waistband of his pants at his back, and slides out, down narrow hallways and hugging the shadows (so so grateful that Tarsus has no moon to illuminate the night, just the stars). 7. Tom Leighton. He didn't think they'd see Kirk again, at least not after last night and the guy kind of ran off into the sunrise. So the thing is, when Kirk shows up, breathing labored but controlled like he wants to gasp for air but won't let himselfyeah, Tom's surprised.

He's keeping watch, tucked under bushes and at first he wants to run screaming, thinking they've been caught, but he recognizes Kirk.

"You keep you and them alive. Let me worry aboutme and everyone else." Kirk stands, cracks his neck and then looks up at the black sky through the window. "I'll try to come back in a month or so. You guys should "Hey, okay?" he asks, looking over Kirk's shoulder for pursuers, reaching go north. Go into the forests and don't stop until you hit the ocean. Oh, shit, out to support him but then stopping at the way Kirk shifts his shoulder back and glances over his shoulder. Tom's stomach plummets, because pursuers wait." Kirk leans into his bag and hands Tom a PADD. "I put likeI don't are a whole level of hell he can't cope with and they're not really any of them know, survival stuff. And it's got a lifesigns monitor in it, and you can try to in any kind of shape to run, but he doesn't see any and Kirk wasn't flat-out- get messages past the ionic cloud but it's just not working right now" running. Kirk's neck cracks and Tom realizes that that was all he was Tom looks at it, pulling up a few files andgod, this could save them. doingtwisting his neck to crack itand feels kind of like an idiot. "They're going to kill him," Roberta says softly, watching Kirk disappear into "I brought" Kirk starts, then shakes his head and begins emptying pockets. the night. "I" Tom breaks off, because yes, yes they are but he can't say it. "We should get some sleep. Gonna be a long night tomorrow night." They'll wait out the rest of the day and then leave: he sends everyone to bed and wonders how the fuck to make shelter. He starts canvassing, getting pillowcases and filling them with whatever they can find; whatever they'll be able to carry. 8. Jim Kirk. His life takes on a very very weird pattern, after that. It's like nothing has changed, with Ivana and Kodos. He practices Denobulan and swears in Klingon mentally (okay, saying "Spot runs fast" in Klingon is a swear, but some languages were just made to vent anger and Klingon is one of them. Plus he and Sam had learned it under the blankets of Sam's bed, laughing into the wee hours of the morning, and so there's something ridiculously comforting about it). It hits him that there's too much food on the table. He gets a flash of Tom and Asseih andshit, just everyone who's out there deciding whether or not they can afford to eat tonight or if this is another night they should go hungry so that the food lasts longer and here he is, sitting down to a meal that he won't be able to finish and feels fucking sick to his stomach. "I don't feel well," he says, not sitting. "You have to eat, James," Kodos says, smiling encouragingly, fondly. "We must keep our strength up for our people. We must stay strong for them in these trying times when our crops are failing and disease runs rampant." If he'd been Frank, Jim would have snarled at him. But Kodos isn't Frank, and he's killing people, and he's right, kind ofnot that there's a plague, because that's bullshit. But Jim's no good to anyone dead: Kodos would be lots more use dead. Jim eats just enough, slides the rest into the pockets of the oversized sweatshirt he decided to wear because he can hide in it, and tries to breathe evenly and not stab Kodos with his butter knife. Nothing changes, like this is all perfectly fine and ordinary. It's alarming what becomes ordinarythe feel of a phaser in his hand and the slight hum of it when he fires it (set to stun, always to stun, no matter how angry he is it's always always always stun because there are lines that you just thathe just can't cross). He goes out every night, and saves maybemaybe five a night. On a really good night he saves fifteen and the day after he watches for any sign that Kodos is frustrated. One night he finds people sliding out of a room and a soldier standing, watching them go with tears streaming down his face before he turns the phaser on himself. That was the first night that Jim had to throw up. He tries not to: the food shortage is getting really bad now, and he justhe can't eat the excessive amount of food on the table every night. Not without feeling like he's killing people that way.

Meals, ready-to-eat, Tom reads. Kirk brought them MREs. Twelve of them. "Is anyone coming?" Tom asks, curling his fingers around the packaging and trying very hard not to cry because this is more than he thinks most of them have had in months. Kirk shakes his head. "I don't know." "So we're going to die." Kirk looks at him, and his hazel eyes go from tired to pissed in a millisecond. "I got rope if you want to hang yourself," he snaps, pulling the MREs from Tom's hands and heading into the house like Tom's lost the right to hold them or something, and Tom doesn't think he actually has a rope for Tom to kill himself with. "Ihow are we" Tom says, trailing him. "We'll figure it out," Kirk says. "This is an M-class planet. We just have to move away from here, you've got to get into the woods. I'm pretty sure that those bears are a myth, but you can hunt in there and I infected all the lifesigns detectors so they can't find youit just diminishes their capacity to recognize lifesigns after the forest line, but yours still works so you'll see them but they won't see you, you know? And, oh, here." He hands one to Donovan, who blinks at him. "Just keep following the river north." "So we die looking." "Better die on your feet then curled up in a corner," Kirk says flatly. "Better to die doing something. Not that anyone's dying," he adds, and Tom frowns because yes they are but Kirk's looking past Tom at Kevin, who's standing in the doorway and yeah, okay, reassure the kids. "You came back," Kevin says. He came back with food Tom owes Kirk so hard, and he doesn't even know the kid's last name. "And I brought presents," Kirk agrees. He lowers himself into a chair like an old man (joint pain, he needs to eat more fruit) and Kevin stands beside him, tucks against Kirk's side. "You're going to have to ration them," Kirk tells Tom, rubbing Kevin's back, "maybe eat one a week between all of you, but it should up your caloric intake, give you enough energy to keep going out and foraging or hunting or whatever you're doing. This is likeit. I don't think I canI can't get more, so whatever you're doing has to be enough." He can't, not without looking really suspicious and... "What's going on out there?" Roberta asks. "The night's total was a little under 500, I don't know what's happening tonight," Kirk says. "Roberta, you want to start getting these going, maybe break open that MRE?" Tom suggests. Roberta looks at him and then nods, pulling the kids away as Elith takes the MREs carefully. Kirk looks at Tom. "I have to go," he says, almost regretful. Tom nods, and then asks, "What are youdo you have a plan?" "It's a work in progress." Tom stares at him. This is...kind of horrifying. "So what do we"

One night he undresses and looks in the mirror to take stock. He's never been he can count his ribs. He's going to have to add another layer to hide it. Lather, rinse, repeat: same shit, different day. It takes him a week of relentless repetition of the smuggle-people-out/playnice game before he even thinks to send Mom a message. It never occurs to him to message Sam, who he figures is busy with his own life.

get more water from the river and oh, hey, maybe they should try to like, fish, except fishing would make them really exposed because there aren't a lot of trees by the bank, but they're settled about five minutes away, so, it might be worth trying. He almost doesn't see him, but then Kirk's frowning at his lifesigns detector looking tired. He always looks tired, Tom thinks, though that's an exaggeration; he's only seen him twice, this time makes three. Still, he didn't expect to really see him again at all. "Kirk," he calls, and Kirk looks up and scans for Tom, then smiles. "Hey." "How're you?" Tom asks. "Oh I'm just...dandy," Kirk says, and grins, because yeah, this is kind of an absurd conversation. "Rabbits?" "More or less," Tom agrees, eyeing them as Kirk falls into step with him. The silence that falls is a little uneasyTom wants desperately to ask what's going on, but maybe Kirk's trying to avoid thinking about it. What Tom wants is for Kirk to say that Starfleet's coming to rescue them and give them hope that'd keep them alive, renew the will to live. He inhales to ask and Kirk glances at him. "You don't want to know," Kirk informs him preemptively, and the look in his eyes makes Tom want to agree that no, he really doesn't except he can'tnot know. He's the oldest here and in charge and he justneeds to know. He needs to know. "Oh, I really do," Tom disagrees flatly , sitting down and wincing at the pull in his back. "How many?" "Three thousand." "A month and three thousand people are dead?" Tom demands incredulously. "What the hell?" "He's got a eugenics theory. He wiped out the big portions in sweeps, and now he's down to refining the population." It takes a second for that to all filter in, not least because of how straightforward Kirk says it. Like it's not as sick as it really is, and then Tom realizes that it's "A breeding program." "Looks like." "When willis anyone coming?" "Communication's knocked out because of the ionic field around the planet. Our in-person next check-in isn't until February. After that it'll take Starfleet a month to get here unless there's a cruiser close, but there's no reason for one to be. The fastest anyone can get here is two weeks." "February," Tom says, because that seems to be when Kirk thinks someone's actually going to show. "That'swhat, it's September so that's six months." "I know." "You're talking about doing this for half a year." "Yep." Tom sits, trying to put this all together, to process and make some sense of it in a way that will make him okay with it. He wanted to know but he really really doesn't, in hindsight, want to know at all. "What's your last name, even?" Tom asks. "Kirk." Kirk says it like maybe Tom's slow. "Thenwhat's your first name?" "Jim. My name's Jim." Jim Kirk, Kodos' foster-son, right, Tom should have put that together a while ago.

You know who I miss? Miranda Reaver.

It's vague enough that no one will get itstupid 21st century references but Miranda was a planet of the dead and Kodos reminds him of Reavers; not human anymore, destroying anything that is. It'll read like a stupid message, but Mom will get it. Kodos is so busy with his councilors he doesn't really care what Jim's doing as long as he's not out taking walks and he stays inside the building. Ivana's migraines are worse so she's medicating. He thinks she knows what's going on and justcan't cope. So she acts like it's not happening, and stays nice and doped up. They have plenty of medical supplies. Jim realizes that the people he might havethe people who might have tried to save everyone or stop this on the council? They're all dead. Everyone who could have helped is dead and he's alone. When he looks up their dates of death and sees that a few of them died in April and May he realizes that this all was started four months before things were nearly this bad: Kodos was planning it all along. Sometimes, when he's going north, he stops in towns. He has to be careful; playing music in his room and a recording of him snoring. His door is locked and that's always respected, which Jim's never been more grateful for. But he stops in towns where people starved to death before the relocation, and once he's over the smell he goes in and where people are laying in their beds, jaws hanging open slightly with skin so thin it looks like it would turn to ash if Jim touched it; seems painted over their bones. Sometimes there are children, at their sides or in their arms. Laid down to die, and sometimes he can tell, by the way that the kids' bodies are more decomposed, that they brought the corpses of the children into bed with them; clung to them as they died and he feelsso so sick. The time he found a cradle with a baby in it with the pillow still over the baby's head, or the one where there was a tub and three small rotting bodies floating in itthose were bad times. Really really bad. Jim doesn't believe in ghosts, but if he did he'd think they were here. Ghosts of kids screaming to be remembered, dead because their parents couldn't bear for them to starve to death, or maybe worse didn't want to share the food with them, but Jim can't bear to think about that. It's a far kinder death, maybe. He doesn't know why he comes to these places: looking for survivors or food, ostensibly, but usually there's a good chance that there's neither: that they've already been emptied out by people making their way to the compound or running into the woods by the time Jim gets there (it depends, he knows, on how much of the rumors people have heard, and how much they're willing to take their chances. The belief is that the compound has foodit's more certain than taking chances in the woods). He justhas to see. Someone has to see, because they don't or they won'tthey sit up there in that fucking compound and they just 9. Tom Leighton. He's getting better at this hunting business. It's been a month; and they had to stop and they kind of made this lean-to thing. Apparently Elith's parents had made her help them build the house they lived in so she had a good time bossing all of them around while they tried to figure out how exactly to bind things together without rope. He's heading back with five rabbit-like things in hand , thinking that maybe he'll use one of them to make a stew or something; Asseih's having trouble swallowing. Water, at least, no one's lacking, they make trips every day to

"Can you do this for half a year?" he asks after a long pause. "Whatever it is you're doing, this Robin Hood act you've got going on? They're going to catch youthey always catch them." He knows this mostly from shows and movies but still, Jim's a kid and he's a one-man smuggling machine and he's going to get caught because there are adults and there are a lot of them. "You're fucking depressing," Jim tells him as they get to the lean-to and the kids start peering out. "Seriously. Shut up." Tom does, because Jim looks pretty bad, and not physicallysure he's on the too-thin side, but they all are. He just looks...wrecked. On the brink of it being too much and he's just a kid. Jim's with the kids by the time Tom checks back in, smiling at Asseih and Donovan and listening to Angel complain about the weather and letting Jack lean against him. Tom kind of thinks, watching, that maybe Jim should be doing this; being with the kids, because he's better at acting like everything's totally going to be fine and Tom's pretty sure that he's more transparent than glass. When Jim leaves two hours before sunrise Asseih cries herself to sleep, and Tom feels hopeless, which he doesn't think was Jim's intention. He thinks...he thinks maybe Jim had a bad night the night before: maybe he hasn't been able to save anybody. He's not really sure how he feels about the fact that they're Jim's cheer-up detour. 10. Jim Kirk. Jim should be grateful, really, that no one suspects him, but mostly he's well. He'd have killed him first. Jim doesn't know why Kodos hasn't killed him. Jim's read the theory. About how women consume less in calories and if you keep them below a certain IQ they're less likely (well, anyone is, regardless of gender) to be serious threats. About how you only need a handful of men to start breeding the population after the cleanse is complete. Which is fucked up, really, because the idea that anyone's going to stay here, that it's not going to get pulled down around Kodos' ears when Starfleet does check in in February. This whole thing is pointless. But the thing is, Jim's name is on that list. Jim's name is on the top of that list. Jim is never going to be able to look at a stud bull the same way again. Of course, that assumes he's getting off this fucking planet, and He's not. He's going to collapse someday and just not be able to get back up, or he'll get shot. He'she's made his peace with it, as long as he diesdoing something. Shit, he'd rather die like that then live and be part of thisbe more of a part of it, because he recognizes those algorithms and they're his, he's doing this.

away but he can't, he really can't. He wants to throw up every time he tries, and as long as he's still functioning, and it can be managed he's fine. He's fine. "Play me something," she says, sitting on the piano bench. "Sing me something in Andorian." She smiles at him, and he sits, sings in Andorian, and plays mediocre piano and thinks he's a fucking hypocrite for staying here and not trying to kill Kodos. Kodos comes in and smiles at them like they're a real family. Like this isn't a fucking sham. He's showing no wear: his mustache and goatee are still vibrant red, and so is his hair. Hell, Jim's about to go gray, but not Kodos. It's like once this began, he totally relaxed again. No more bags under his eyes, he's just...fine. Ivana reaches over and squeezes his knee, and Jim glances at her, stomach tightening. She can't have missed that his leg is too thin, but she doesn't say anything, and he doesn't care why she doesn't; it makes him so grateful to her that he could cry for a second. Every so often, someone gets mad at him for saving them. Tonight it's a twenty-something year old guy who looks completely defeated, and now betrayed on top of that. "What's the point?" the guy asks, scrubbing at his face after Jim tells them they have to run. Now. "Kidyou can't win." Jim looks at him and glares, pointing with his phaser at the stunned guard. "Look, you can wait around for her to wake up, and then you won't have to worry about the point, which, asshole, is to fucking live." "You gonna storm the keep?" "Iwhat?" "You're not stopping it, you're justmanaging the damage," the guy snarls, stepping towards Jim. And Jim punches him in the face. "Come with me," he says flatly to the rest of them as the guy writhes on the ground, clutching his bleeding nose. They come. Jim doesn't turn around to see if the guy on the ground follows.

It's September and they're almost half of their original population. Jim can't save them allhe can't stop the soldiers from walking into a cluster of homes and shooting everyone with phasers set to 'disintegrate'. But the thing is. Jim's sneaking out every night. Sneaking out and smuggling He can't stop people from being stupid and going back to their homes, and food to the pockets of people (never a group bigger than 12all spread out, being discovered. that way they're harder to track), or trying to spot the soldiers to estimate Little battles. He's biding his time. Starfleet has to notice that no one has when the hell they're going out: when it's going to happen. sent any communication. Someone has to come for these peoplehe has It goes on and on and onhe shaves his head because one night when he to believe that. Jim's buying them time, but not a lot. Not enough. runs his hand through it he comes away with this huge gross clump of hair. "James, what have you done?" Ivana asks. She's getting more and more vapid. Or maybemaybe Jim tempts death, and Ivana checks out. Or maybe she's drugged, Jim doesn'the wouldn't put it past Kodos, but she's not going to get killed because Kodos is crazy but he loves her, and he'll keep her alive and so Jim's making the decision not to investigate. If she wanted to save herself she would have. "I figured it was kind of stupid to wear it long," he says, and runs a hand over the bristles a little self-consciously. It's risky because now he can't hide behind the hair. But the hair was a give-away. He could eat more: he could. He could eat everything offered and stop squirreling it away and giving it Maybe he'll skip his nap, try to figure out how to boost the signal again. Mom's not responding to his messages, which means either she's out of range or he's not boosting the signal enough, or...or it's jammed. But he can't figure it out, and if it's just that he's not doing enough, that he can fix. The other two...he's not sure he can do. It's not like he can hijack a shuttle or something; he's pretty sure they'd catch him, because those are even more heavily guarded than the dwindling grain stores. 11. Pawramudd Akar He'd been the pilot on the medical shuttle that had hurtled her and the baby to safety.

That's how Pawramudd gets pulled out of his bed and hauled into the transportation room to deal with a pissed off Winona Kirk because apparently their Kelvin-survivor-bond is supposed to have magical powers. He doesn't even know how she got onto the Jimmy Carter. They aren't really close to any planets right now. He's helmsman on the Jimmy Carter; he manages to get Captain Orkney to listen to her and put in a tentative course to Tarsus because Winona Kirk on a mission is rare enough that everyone kind of takes notice. Then Orkney makes her sit down and explain. "Something's fucked on Tarsus," Kirk says to him, and Pawramudd's having flashbacks to thirteen years ago and being scared as fuck of her, and that she'd been right all the time and he nods. "Fucked how?" Orkney asks, frowning and shifting her weight. "My kid's there," Kirk says. "I get a message a month ago that doesn't sound like him at all." He looks at her. "Jim?" he asks, tentative. She looks up, and she's still got ridiculous blue eyes and she's pretty, and that she's a badass bitch is always such a surprise because she looks so sweet. "Yes." He nods. "What are you assuming?" Orkney asks. "The worst." Orkney nods again and goes back to the bridge to get on the comm link, and manages to get the Samaritan, a hospital ship, to meet up with them. "You said a month ago," Pawramudd says quietly, curious, when they're alone. "I was on the other end of the quadrant," Kirk snaps. She spends the next four hours yelling at Starfleet personnel from Admirals to a few people whose titles no one's really sure about, and Pawramudd stays because...what else is he going to do? "Lieutenants Kirk and Akar to the bridge," the captain calls.

12. Jim Kirk. He's picking at blisters on his palms as he gets back into the compound. He's got them up and down his arms from getting into the grain stores, from using his forearms to prop away wiring. He goes to his roomwhen he gets this far, he's home free; he feels like he can relax and that no one is going to find him out. It's like his paranoia lessens, once his room is in sight. There's a rumbling explosion, and Jim stills, hand on the doorknob, craning to see down the hall. What was that? "What have you done?" Kodos demands, coming from the other direction. "What have you done?" "What?" Jim demands, taking a quick step away, stomach dropping. Kodos grabs his hand, stares at the blisters like he knows exactly where Jim got them, and then at Jim. "I didn't want to believe it," he says, eyes flashing, face redder than his hair. He looks like he's on fire. "But it's been you all along." Jim doesn't know how to respond to that, mostly because he feels relieved. Thank fuck. It's over. It's over. "You were like a son to me!" he snarls, taking a swing at Jim, who really did used to be better at avoiding angry people than this. Well, that's a lie, because Sam was never angry like this. Annoyed, going after Jim hollering because Jim Concentration is really fucking hard, Jim realizes when he looks up to find he's on the ground with Kodos hovering over him, ears ringing . "Don't you understand?" he shouts, hunching over Jim. Jim's hands are flat on the floor, and it's in him to get up. His whole body screams to stay down. Whimpers, pleads, protests as he forces himself away from the floor, back into Kodos' face.

"It's fucking unsustainable!" Jim yells back at him Which is probably not the important part, but you'd think an eugenics theorist would know that "We must be close," Pawramudd says, and Kirk nods. genocide is unsustainable; that eventually the people will turn or you'll lose They are, Tarsus IV in the viewing screen. "Scanners indicate a strange control of your "allies" or become too beholden to themgenocide as a amount of sonic energy," Haulu, the science officer, reports. "Lifesigns means to power isn't fucking sustainablenever mind Starfleet was due to scanners indicate that there are two thousand people in the compound come back in February and would swarm the place with new people. andtwo thousand more much further north. That's not protocol for a motherfuck Jim needs to start paying attention, because he can feel the settling colony," he says, frowning at them all. Pawramudd looks at the dots; blood streaming from his nose and his lip is split and Kodos is still swinging, they're too scattered to be another break-away colony. It doesn't make and Jim feebly tries to get his arms up to protect his face. sense. "They'd never have known" "Well, Kirk?" the captain asks, swiveling in her chair to look at Kirk, who's Jim laughs, because what? It's the wrong thing to dohe should be looking at the planet like she's goiing to fucking kick its ass. fucking punch back, getting Kodos' hands away from his neck but he can't, Pawramudd would hate to be that planet. scrabbles a half-second too-late as the pressure increases and Jim's knees buckle, his vision graying out, Kodos' hands the only things holding him up "Assume it's hostile." against the wall and Jim begins struggling even more when his vision blacks It is. They beam down and are immediately shot at, and Kirk throws a out. goddamn grenade and then takes of at a dead run while everyone else is And then Kodos justcollapses against Jim, hard, knocking them both into trying to find their footing. the wall, and Jim kicks Kodos off, struggling up because he knows those It doesn't take long to figure out what's happened here, especially not when footsteps. people start coming up to them.. It takes all of thirty minutes to figure out "Mom," Jim manages around his bruised throat. God, he's not sure he can what happened, and some stupid ensign lets it slip and then they've got sobbing people on their hands: apparently the party line was that there was actually stand, but "Mom." a plague, but none of the medics can find any evidence of it. People were He can't get his feet underneath him. Notnot yet. He needs a second to slaughtered here, and within forty-five minutes of their arrival, Starfleet has cough and choke and cry, and she drags the body away and sits next to a population of 4,000 people in grieving shock. him, putting the phaser back in its holster and pulling him in a little. He collapses further, fingers clenching at the fabric of her pants (not regulationshe's not in uniform).

She sits quietly, stroking his head and the fuzz of hair as he sobs into her lap. After a while he finishes crying himself out, manages to stop. He has tothey don't know where everyone is. He gets up, and she presses his phaser into his palmdoesn't try to stop him, just arms him. He's pretty sure there's something significant there. Or maybe not. He's so tired, and now he's got adrenaline but he's going to crash really hard, really soon. His hand wraps around the phaser and shakes. But it feelsit feels reassuring.

"It's okay," Jim says to the kids, and he's the guy who saved them, and who the hell are they going to trust if not him? "They're the good guys." He's shivering as they walk to the shuttles and then to the ships; shock. He knows he walks with Mom, but after that he kind of zones out. It's over, and done, and he's really just so so fucking tired. "How'd you?" he begins, looking at Mom sideways. "I called you Rodney McKay about a month ago and you didn't respond in all caps. Something was up."

"Shoot anyone who comes at you who isn't Starfleet," she tells him, pulling That'skind of par for the course. Of course that was what brought her. him along with her down the hallways, and he realizes that the phaser's light How could it have been anything else? A message he didn't respond to tips is unfamiliar and red, not the cool blue he's gotten used to. her off to bring in the cavalry: right. "Is that your policy?" he demands, following her and flipping the phaser to He sleeps on the Jimmy Carter, and as soon as they're able to they're being 'stun' because jesus fuck, Mom . He gets that she's freaked for him but beamed to Earth Spacedock; beaming from ship to base to ship until they're killing everyone isn't the answer. There are lines he won't cross, not even in range for the dock, and then hustled into a shuttle headed for Earth. now. "Because I've got a lot of civilians here, Mom." Mom's hand is warm on his back, guiding him. It takes all of twelve hours, "You've got," she says, frowning at him like she doesn't get what he's saying and when they're above Earth Sam calls the comm Jim hasn't realized he's here, and he'd explain that yeah, he saved their lives so they're his holding. Actually, Sam's been calling, the log is full of his missed calls. Jim responsibility but he's pulled up short because in the absolute ruins of the just happens to be awake and aware enough to take this one. courtyard are a few thousand people, the majority of whom are colonists "Yeah," he manages tiredly, pressing his head into the window. the rest are Starfleet personnel, and that's great, but how the fuck did they "Jim!" Sam shouts, and Jim grimaces against the sharpness of his voice. find them all, he destroyed the lifesigns "Jim! Oh my god, Jim" And then he remembers right, Starfleet's here to help, and they would have had their own lifesign indictators, and he has no idea how long he was up in "'M okay," Jim says. He's going for reassuring; he's pretty sure this is what that hall crying, so they totally could have gathered everyone. With beaming epic failure looks (sounds) like (no, epic failure is thousands deadno. Bad line of thought). tech it'd only take a few seconds. Some people are crying, hugging people they thought were dead, and some "You are not," Sam snaps back, annoyed and familiar and Jim chokes just a people are in shock and some people are screaming and fightinglike Tom. little on that because god, Sam. "Yeah, there's that," Jim agrees. He needshe needs to cry or laugh or It takes Jim a second to recognize him, and then he can see that scream but he's justhe's just so tired. the kids are the ones who look the most terrified. "Tom," Jim says hoarsely, and then again louder. Tom turns to look at him, "Let me talk to Mom, Jim," Sam demands. stops fighting with the Starfleet personnel. "It's over. We made it. It's okay." Jim hands it over, and the light comes on indicating they're about to land at the Earth Spacedock. "We" Tom begins, and then looks at the adults, then the kids, and justcollapses and cries. And that sets off a chain reaction that freaks all Jim walks under his own power off the shuttle and into the bay area. There's the other kids out and Jim could just hit Tom, because at least Jim had the a woman with a tricorder who tries to get close but then catches a look of decency to have a breakdown where no one could fucking see him. God, Mom and, well. Jim flinches when a few people run by, and then there's one he's such an asshole. person. "Jim," Mom says almost impatiently, because yeah, fine, she wants to get "Hey, Jimmy," Sam murmurs, and then guides them down to the floor right him checked out by doctors and then onto the ship and headed for Earth in the middle of the station, cradling Jim against his body and Sam is so and out of here because he's her only priority, but he's got responsibilities warm, and solidhe's solid. He can feel Sam's hand running over the knobs and they don't stop just because Starfleet shows up. of his spine and the bumps of his ribs even through the layers of clothes and Jim sobs even though he doesn't want to; is terrified that he won't stop this "Yeah, in a sec," he says, climbing over debris (what the hell did she do, time. So he chokes on it, naps a little; tries to work up the strength to get up. blow everything to motherfucking shit?). "Asseih. Hey. Kevin. Hey, look at Looks up from his awkward angle at Sam's familiar face and re-memorizes me." him after a year of being away. Seventeen's a good look on Sam. They're moving awaythey're all afraid of the advancing officersall who He looks for Mom, and Sam says, apparently reading his mind or look nothing but kind and pitying, and they turn to look at Jim, and they'd something, "She had to go kick ass. I told her not to worry about it, we're head towards him, he's sure, if there weren't more officers in the good." background behind him. "Wait," Jim says to the officers, and then looks at the kids. "Hey. Heyshut Jim wants to say that he's not, actually, good, but if she's kicking ass then that can only mean good things for him and Sam won't leave. He nods. up. Watch." And then Jim turns to the officers and very deliberately hugs them. Each one. He stands with an effort, and then says, flatly, "I'm hungry." It'sit might be He can barely stand, and they're more catching him, stiffening with surprise true. His body gave up trying to signal hunger to him a while ago, but it's the and then rubbing his back, and he stops looking at them after the sixth one right thing to say. because they're crying like Jim's breaking their heart. "That revelation right there?" Sam says, wry and sarcastic, hands warm on Jim's shoulders as they stand. "That's rocking my world." He hugs all seventeen of them, and then looks at the kids, whowell, it worked, because they're sort ofinching towards them. He doesn't know "Shut up," Jim says, and barks a rusty, surprised laugh when he gets a how else to prove that these are the good guyshe's not surehe's not good look at him. "Dude," Jim says, pained and trying not to laugh more but sure that just the words are enough. it's so so stupid. "Your fly is open."

Sam makes a face at him and zips up, and then has to lift him up like he's a kid to get him to an EMT, who says no food, not even close; not until Jim's been checked over by a specialist. They get him onto a medical shuttle and take him to Starfleet Medical: San Francisco. There are blood tests and Sam waving papers and Jim's so exhausted he can't even track the movementit makes him too dizzy. They all must be here, he knows, clogging up the IICU and regular ICU and the Pediatric ICU, but he's in a private room and thinks that they're not his responsibility anymore. Sam glances around with a frown, but looks at Jim. "Go to sleep," he says. "I can't," Jim says, shaking his head. "I ca" "Jim. There's no one left to save," Sam says, squeezing his hand. Sam means that they've all been rescued: Jim's brain thinks that means he's the only survivor. He sleeps until Frank walks in, wakes him up with a start and Jim is convinced that he's Kodos coming for him. Jim's hand closes on the lamp and hurls it at Frankit's Frank, just Frank, who stares at himcompletely bewilderedand then Sam's shoving him out, pushing Jim back down. Jim stares at the lamp, shattered, and feels completely fucking confused. He didn'the hadn't meant He can't fucking breathe. "Calm down. Jim. Jim!" Jim shakes his headhe can't clear it. It feels like he's being choked again, hands grasping around his throat and pressing pressing pressing pressing "Here," Sam says, and shoves a PADD into his hands, closes Jim's fingers around the stylus. "Jim, come on. Come on, you're fine. Breathe, come on, please just" It takes a second to focus on what it is, but when he does he's so surprised that it knocks the panic right out of him. There's a millennium problem up, variables and values spread out simply in front of him. Jim chokes a little, because god, yes. This. Finite solutions with theoretical applications. It can't be twisted orit's theoretical. There's no chance for practical application: not yet, anyway. It's safe. He settles a little bit further down, draws his knees up, and begins to work in earnest, and blocks everything else around him in favor of it. Sam explains, quietly, that Mom had to go kick some ass and that's fine Jim feels better knowing she's out there looking for anyone they missed because if he can't beat least it's her. He comms her and she picks up. "Yeah, baby?" "Some people swam the river," Jim says. "Anddidn't make it. But the bodies" "I got it," she says. "You eating? Listening to your brother?" "You're coming back in two days, right?" Jim says, and maybe he's not okay with her being gone, not like he thought. "Yeah, Jimmy. Two days." She sounds hoarse, and Jim nods even though she can't see it. "Okay," he says. "Okay." He hands the comm back to Sam, who pockets it, watching Jim carefully. "I'm okay," Jim says, and maybe it's a lie but it's less of a lie than it's been lately.

He drinks some water, picks at oatmeal. It makes him want to throw up, though, so he doesn't keep eating it. Sam gets him another cup of water. There are conversations held around himeventually the doctor comes in to talk to them about treating Jimabout how he's at risk for kidney failure, but how they're more worried about his brain. They take Sam out of the room to tell Sam about it like Jim's not aware of just how bad he is. Like somehow if Jim hears it it'll be exacerbated: self-fulfilling prophecy of mental breakdowns or something. These people have clearly never met Mom: Jim's got good genes for being psychotic. Mom's at least functional. Jim could totally be a functional psychotic. Okay, he can't do this problem. He's out of practice. Time to start lowerhe flips through problems until he finds Kirrria's theory. He'll work his way back up. He's going to be fine. And if he can't be fine, he'll be functional. He jerks awake an hour later and hacks into the hospital to monitor everyone; he doesn't know all of their names, but hell, they were all admitted at the same time, so they're not hard to find. Three people die in the first three hours; they were too far gone and the shock of the last five hours was too much. It makes him feel cold, like a failure. He keeps checking back. 13. Miko Kasab, MD. Fourteen years ago, Winona Kirk was her patient after the Black Hawk was attacked and limped back into space. Kirk had almost died, been comatose for months. Thirteen years go, she'd had both Winona and James Tiberius Kirk as patients when she did the final check-up for release after the disaster of theKelvin. She's the one who did James's exhaustive allergy work-up; his allergies are worse than his mother'spossibly exposure to radiation after theKelvin, possibly just really terrible genetics. Over the course of the last thirteen years, she's had Winona Kirk as a patient a few more times, and she's always had to be coaxed back from the brink of death. Miko gets stuck with her because everyone else is absolutely terrified of her. She should have been immediately assigned to Jim's case. She's not, and that's fine until she sees Retinox 5 flash on the screen as a treatment. He's deathly allergic to that shit, and it's in everything. That his doctor misses it in his chart is just stupidity. She gets there in time, yells back and forth with the administration and Uri Haradi (who is such a pompous jerk), and finally gets him as her patient. She doesn't get into the room until late, and the kid on the bed is His eyes are sunken and his skin is pulled tightly over his face. He's not nearly as bad as the other kids she's seen today; he had access to food, she thinks, but not a lot of it. The room is 30C, and he looks comfortable enough, but his collarbones cut out of his chest and the hospital gown hangs limply from his frame even as he's sitting calmly in the bed, looking at a PADD, tapping his stylus against the mattress. There's an empty cup on the tray beside him, but the oatmeal hasn't been noticeably eaten. She doesn't know if it's because he hasn't noticed it or because he's not eating. "I'm Sam," the boy next to him says. He doesn't stand, but he does look at her. "I'm his brother." His hand is wrapped around James', thumb stroking along the ridges of bone. She remembers that George had sat just like that when Winona had been in a bed like this, and then wonders where the hell Winona is.

"Are you his legal guardian?" she asks, frowning at her PADD. He was two when Winona was first in here, so he's probably 17 now. He hands her a paper. "I'm his medical proxy. Our stepdadJim's not hot being around people right now. We figured the less stress the better, and Mom's" he waves a hand and then shakes his head. "So I'll be here." She nods, frowning, because what? She left her thirteen-year-old with the seventeen-year-old? "I'm Miko Kasab, I'll be James's" "Jim." Sam's the one to correct her, not Jim, and from Sam's look that's unusual. She'll have to get Vaila Bird on this case. She's an excellent trauma psychiatrist, and Jim Kirk is going to need excellent. "Jim's," she corrects herself, "doctor. We're going to start you on intravenous drip to rehydrate you," she says, addressing Jim. He has blue eyes like his fatherbluer. It's weird that she remembers that. It's even more weird because his chart says 'hazel'. She makes a noteit could be a protein break-down problem or a pigmentation fluctuation, which they would have to watch. Then again, it could just be environmental and traumarelated. "We have a mix that won't interfere with your allergies to take care of vitamin deficiencies, and we're going to have you eat every two hours to get your stomach used to eating again." "I ate," Jim tells her. She looks at him, then at the chart. "I ate more than they did," he amends. "Jim, you still look like shit," Sam snorts, and Jim looks at him, then shrugs one sharp shoulder. "We're not judging how much you ate compared to everyone else," she says, gentle. "We're focused on you right now." She turns to Sam, and he nods towards the door, coming outside the room with her. She's not sure how much Jim should hear right now: won't know until Bird gets down here to do an evaluation. "He's right," she says quietly. "Comparatively he was in much better shape nutrition-wise than the others. With him we're more worried about exhaustionhe's presenting more like the type of anorexic who eats the bare minimum and loading up on nutrients when they do eat rather than a starvation sufferer who simply lacks food altogether. The psychiatrist will work with him to see how much of that is the case and how much of it has to do with the fact that maybe he just had access to more food that was better for him than the others. "It's not uncommon for people in these situations to overestimate the conditions of their bodies, and overexert. He has joint damage, and a few stress fractures, buthe's more at risk for psychological issues than physical." "Like what? Jim'sJim's not" he breaks off and shakes his head, thinking better of whatever it was he was going to say, folds his arms over his chest, hunches his shoulders forward. "Like what? Suicidal?" "We don't know. It's possible that he might be, or he might become suicidal; we're going to watch him for it carefully." She pauses, and then says, trying to be as gentle as possible, "Are you worried about something else?" He looks at her and then shakes his head. "No. I was just going to say he wasn't crazy, 'cause I'm always telling people that at home. He's not, he's justJimmy." He scrubs his face with a hand and then folds his arms against his chest again. "Um, what else?" "He's going to need to have his relationship with food assessed. We might find that he eats and hoards; we might find he refuses to eat flat out; he might be fine after the initial period of having access to so much food that he's overwhelmed by it. We won't know until he's healthy enough to eat.

"He could have an anxiety disorder, it's very likely that he's going to have a severe case of post traumatic stress disorder. Doctor Bird will be the psychiatrist for Jim's case, she'll be in later to talk specifics for you." "He's just" Sam breaks off, shakes his head. "He's Jim." George said that too. "It's her." Like it meant something, or everything. Maybe it does. "We're not just treating his malnutrition in terms of the obvious signs of starvation, Sam. We're treating him for an irregular heartbeat, and massive vitamin deficiency. He's highly anemic with low blood pressure. He shouldn't have been able to walk at all, when you saw him, and compounding all of this is his sleep deprivation. It's going to be very slow goingthis could be months." Sam nods. "Months," he repeats. "Okay." 14. Winona Kirk. "He's in bad shape," Sam says. He sounds wrecked. She rubs her forehead as the shuttle door opens up and she walks off into the unloading area of Earth's Spacedock. She's hidden Ivana Kodos, now Helen Karidian. Checked her into a detox program for the depressants she was on. She knew Ivana a few years ago; she might have been a debutante and a coward but she wasn't a war criminal. Winona's never really had a problem being judge, jury and executioner, but she's willing to be merciful with the wife: she just married badly. It didn't hurt that the first thing Ivana said when she saw Winona was, "Jim's all right, isn't he? God, I'm soI didn'tI tried." Winona believes her; and at the end of the day it doesn't really matter what she does right now. If she finds out Ivana was complicit or hurt Jim, it's not like she can't just come back and kill the bitch. "How bad?" she asks Sam. "I don't know. Bad? I don'tFrank's been really awesome: he will be really awesome and stuff but" Good parents would rush home, but she thinks most parents don't walk off of shuttles after hiding the widows of genocidal maniacs to find admirals waiting nervously. She raises an eyebrow. What fresh hell is this? "Sam? I've got shit I have to sort out, call me if things get worse, if not I'll see you in three days. Tell Jim: three days." "You said two," he says, flatly. "Jim is counting on two, Mom." "Three more will have to do it, Sam," she says firmly, because she's an asshole but this, whatever it is, is bad. Admirals don't usually seek her out. "What?" Winona asks, nodding to the ensign who hands her her new orders. She'll contact whomever they're from and tell them to fuck off later. "He was the only person in the compound who can give us actionable intelligence." Tishan falls into step. His white hair is a little mussed around his antennae, like he came here as soon as he heard she was going to be on the next shuttle. She glances at her watch: it's 0332. She shuts the door to the conference room and looks at him. "The wife's dead, Kodos is dead, we've got the doctor and we've got the military personnelthe ones who survived" he says pointedly, lifting an eyebrow. His skin looks strangely green in the light of the space dock; her own skin looks jaundiced as she looks down at it. It's always so gratifying when people believe her when she's lying: she's the one who said Ivana was dead. "If they don't like my methods they should have listened when I said my kid was in trouble, two months ago," she says flatly. "There's talk about charging him with complicity."

She's aware that she's not balanced, and that sometimes it shows on her face when she's ready to snap. She thinks this time around she's fucking justified. "Who?" "Kirk" "Who?"

"No, that was legitimate, and the ion cloud did limit communications. He forged a few; Jim's. That's how I knew. He just took advantage of a bad situation. He's dead." Well shit. Jim wakes up and Mom bullies him into eating, coaxes him into it when bullying won't work and she's always been so fucking good with Jim it makes Sam mad at her all over again because she leaves them; leaves him and Frank with Jim every year and they aren't equipped to handle Jim. Not like she can.

"It won't go anywhereI mean, he's thirteen, you can't expect a thirteenyear-old to be" Tishan hastens to say, antennae twitching almost nervously. Which means it's gaining momentum, and she shouldn't have been gone for two daysshe thought it'd be safe to be gone that long. "But there are rumblings, and I wanted you to be aware. Maybe stay in San When she's not making him eat, he's doing math. Endlessly, and it makes Francisco? I know you're not under our jurisdiction, even though you are still Sam smile in relief because that's normal. Weird, but normal. officially ours, so consider it friendly advice and a personal favor." 16. Jim Kirk. It pays to work for the intelligence service sometimes. "I want the name, At first it's the eating. Every two hours, whether he wants to or not. And Tishan." he's tired, and he screams at the nurse, at Sam, at the doctor. Screams and cries and won't let anyone touch him and freaks himself out. "You can't kill her." There are sedatives, and then he's talking to a very nice woman with brown "I won't." skin and clear green eyes who raises her eyebrows at him, makes him talk. "Admiral Norx." Dr. Bird is relentlesshe talks about Tarsus because otherwise she wants to know about his childhood: about how he was born with survivor's guilt. She pays a visit to Admiral Norx, and then Admiral Archer, and then the About the personality tests he's taken since he was two that say he's too president. smart; has an obsessive personality; has a tendency towards antisocial Jimmy never even gets subpoenaed to testify in trials. Later, when he's personality disorder; has a deep need to control things; is a natural leader. angry and raging against the world, he gets pissed at her that she took the It's a trade he's making in his head, and he's not sure if she knows it or not. option away from him. She doesn't care. He's not really sure if she'd ask him about the rest of it, but most of them 15. Sam Kirk. dothe shrinks who have come and gone (quickly) over the years. "How is he?" He talks a lot about the other kidshe feelsresponsible. Everything was Sam jerks awake, and blinks into the dim glow; three days later, at least she destroyed at the compound: the council and generals apparently lit fire so kept this promise. God, Jim'd been so pissed in that weirdly quiet way he's that the worst of the evidence would be burnednot that it matters. They getting pissed. "Mom." started with 8,015 people, 3,923 people remain. "How is he?" she repeats, sliding the door shut and coming around the bed. "Alive. He keeps hacking the hospital database to check on everyone else, but I can't make him stop it," Sam says as she wraps her arms around him. He holds on tight; he knows she had to go do whatever it was she was doing. He's used to it, but fuck, he's glad she's here and it's not all on him. "Sounds about right." "They're treating him for," he breaks off as she picks up the MediPADD and reads it. "They're sending him to a shrink?" she asks. "How's he taking that?" "So far so good. Bird's cool, she's not like, shoving at him. I don't know if she's even read all his aptitude tests, even though they're in his file." That's always been the problem; Jim doesn't react well to being told that he's not living up to his potential, and inevitably a shrink brings it up and Jim storms out and refuses to go back. Not that Sam thinks Jim shouldn't be forced to go back: Jim's almost died more times than Sam can count, not that Jim would ever think of it as being suicidal. No, usually it's stupid shit like jumping off of roofs with "wings" onkid stuff that Sam never did, but Jim doesn't really get limits. Kid needs to see someone. "What happened?" he asks as she sits down and holds Jim's hand, bracing her forearms against the bed and watching him sleep. Sam knows the feeling; he can't quite look away. "Kodos killed 4,092 people," she says. "He's dead, right?" Sam demands after it sinks in, because motherfucker, they sent Jim there and let him go and he'd been so excited and if it'd beenif it had just been like, plague or famine or some shit Sam would get it, but it wasn't. "Was the starvationI mean, was it biochemical?" Today he's in her office, looking out the window and listening to her talk about his survivor's guilt. He slipped up early on and told her about his equations; about Kodos finding them. "Did you do the math to determine the way to get the most people to survive," she asks, "or did you have a eugenics theory?" "No," Jim allows, but he's not going to give in on this. "Doesn't mean I didn't draw him a map." He did the math because numbers make him feel safer, even when they're saying something horrible. Kodos made them do something horrible. The skin on his hands doesn't look like paper anymore: he can't see the bone, covered now with a layer of fat and muscle. They shookwhen he came in in October? They were shaking constantly. Strain or something. They don't shake anymore, but three months is enough time, he thinks. "He took something of yours and he used it," she says softly. "He perverted something that made you feel safe. It's okay to be mad about that." She makes him sound like a fucking battered spousethe tone of her voice reminds him of those PSAs that are always running. He shifts in the chair and cracks his neck. He doesn't know if Ivana got out or not. He doesn't know if he wants her to have or not. "I didn't do enough," he snaps. "I should haveI didn't do enough." She doesn't, at least, try to tell him he's only 13. That he did all he could. He likes that about her, that even though she frames him in ways he wouldn't frame himself, she never patronizes him. He doesn't know when he started to feel better. He knows when he started to look itSam stopped acting like Jim was going to break around the end

of December. Mom didn't really change, but she did start letting him watch movies around then, so maybe that was something. It took him two fucking months to get there, but he did. It's not that he's stopped waiting for the bottom to fall out it's thathe's healthy enough to handle it when it does. They let him go at the very end of January. 17. Frank Hallie. His first thought (after the initial moments of abject horror) when he finds out what's happened, is Great, now he'll be worse. He's not proud of it and he feels fucking guilty for it, buthe's not wrong. After the lamp-throwingincident Frank went back home: he came around when Sam needed him, but beyond that The Jim who comes back looks much older, has blue eyes, and just a fuzz of blond hair. Winona shrugs when he mentions all of it and says Jim's decided to keep his hair short. The shrink, Dr. Bird, comes to the houseall the way to Iowa from San Francisco. Jim won't leave the house most days, so she comes to him. She's a nice woman. Frank almost feels bad for how much abuse Jim hurls at her. He hears Jim shout sometimes when he's home on the weekends and Bird visits (every Sunday at 2:00)breaking the quiet, steady monotone he's been using. They get set up in the study, and Frank can hear them in the kitchen, Jim yelling, "What fucking choice8 out of 500!" and "It was his fucking golden opportunity!" and once, sobbing and wrecked so far that Frank wanted to get out and away from it because even by proxy it hurt too much, "I did the math." And Winona killed the sonovabitch (they're so far past the point where that's even an issue in their marriage, and at least this one he feels like the asshole deserved it) but Frank wants tomath's Jim's thing. Math is, incomprehensibly, Jim's safest space. And the bastard tainted that. Bird sits at his kitchen table and tells him and Winona Jim has survivor's guilt, post traumatic stress disorder; an unhealthy relationship with food. That it's especially hard to treat the survivors of Tarsus IV because there is no record of what happened. That the only person who seems to know what happened and made it out is currently sitting in the living room watching Sarah Connor snarl at Miles Dyson about creating something true. Jim's snickering at John Connor's exasperation. Terminator's pretty violent, but it was the first time Jim expressed interest inanything, and Winona had nodded, so what the hell can Frank say? They're marathoningSam's in there with him, and Sam reads Jim pretty well, so if he starts to get freaked Sam will shut it off. He thinks. "It's not that we need the record on Tarsus," Dr. Bird says before she leaves, standing in the doorway and speaking in a low voice. "It's just that without it we're not on equal footing with him, and sometimes he seems to feel I'm denying or questioning the validity of his experiences. So around the dinner table or just in general if you can indicate to him in little ways that you're conscious of what happened" "How?" Frank demands. He doesn't want to bring it uphell, he'd be repressing the shit out of it. Really, he's not sure Jim isn't. "Not overtly, but if he makes a comment or alludes to it, don't pretend to misunderstand. He might want to talk about it suddenlyin the middle of the night. Might have sudden memory. Try not to be patronizingit's okay to be awkward, just be awkward verbally or tactilely" she pauses, and looks over his shoulder at the boys. "He was starved for touch that was reassuring. It'spossible that for at least four months he had little to no human contact which wasn't him being there for someone else. A huga pat on the back or a high-five, even. They're little things, but they'll mean a great deal to himto us as a species."

Frank nods. All he knows is that it used to be you couldn't eat anything with Jim aroundhe'd pick off your plate if you let him. Now he doesn't. Waits until everyone's eaten, watches, and then reaches for the high-protein supplemental drink. Bypasses steak, chicken, potatoes, carrotsanything. Frank's trying to make his favoriteshell, he sent out for take out, which they do maybe once a year got fresh ice cream in January. He's got no idea what he's supposed to do. "The food thing?" he asks, because apparently Winona's not going to, and he kinda thinks this one's important. Winona's got this thing about Bird that Frank doesn't really understand: she tolerates her, listens when Bird speaks, but you'd think the woman was a goddamn mute the way Winona acts around Bird. "He'll readjust in time," Bird tells him. "He identifies that foodthe drinks as his, because they're ordered specifically for him and none of you will drink it or have indicated that you'd like to." Of course they haven't; those things are thick and faux-chocolate. "He might also feel like if he's just drinking those he's getting what he needs nutritionally and there's more food for you. If you make an abundance then it might help him stop thinking in terms of there being a shortage. If he's up to going out, bring him to a grocery store where he can see that there isn't a shortage of food here. It's one thing for him to know it intellectually, and another to believe it." So Frank starts cooking like he'd cook for five, and there are leftovers and Sam groaning about how he can't eat anymore, he really can't. It's a waste, and he's spending more on food than he's used to and now shopping trips are a family excursion, but the first time Jim laughs at Samnot brittle, not like he's been gone over a year and been through helland finishes what's in front of him? It's worth it. Takes a month or so, but eventually Jim starts eating food at meals. Not enough, not really, so Winona doesn't take him off the drinksdoctors aren't opposed to it, and it's good for Jim to have something that he doesn't have to glance at the rest of them before eating (not that Jim knows he's doing itif Frank wasn't looking for it he wouldn't see it, he doesn't think). Jim runs. He never used to, at least not more than any other kid runs around the fields playing tag. He runs now like he's training. Exercises with weights. Come summer Frank's pretty sure he'll be swimming. It's no use keeping him in the house: doctors suggested he try that the first week. Jim'd made Sam cry with the way he did math like he was possessedthe way he kept looking out the windows franticallylike he thought someone was out there. Winona had said it was someone he thought he'd missed; someone he had to save. Said maybe she should have kept Jim on Tarsus longer so he could see everyone get evacuated and then shrugged. "What the fuck," Sam says, watching Jim run in the snow. "He's getting ready," Winona says from where she's sitting at the table, looking over her orders for shipping out. Frank wonders if she's going to stay longer or leave again. Three months at the hospital, then the two months hereshe's been inactive for a while, turning down summons and orders to stay and manage Jim. "For what? It's Riverside," Sam protests, and Frank smiles at him slightly, squeezes his shoulder. Sam's a good kid: worried about his brother, and who can blame him? "Whatever comes next," Winona replies blithely, and Frank looks at her and remembers all over again that she's got a life that's so different from his that she lives out there. That she can look at what Jim's doing and recognize it for what it is and be totally fine with it; not worried at all. Dealing with the town isa challenge. They're all fascinated, but when it's a family excursion they don't come close. Mostly because Winona's fuck-off

vibe is lethal. But Jim's having a bad day because Winona's gone and Sam won't leave Jim if he doesn't have to, so Frank's doing grocery shopping among the wolves. Well, their friends, but he's feeling kind of hunted. "How is he?" Kyle Hallet asks. Kyle's kid, Aaron, was Jim's best friend, before all this. Frank looks up from the list Sam had made. Apparently they're going to be enticing Jim with chocolate this week: brownies feature heavily. "Jim? He's getting better." Kyle chuckles, which is a little strange until Frank realizes he's nervous. "Aaron's asking about when Jim'll be all right to see people," he says, and his tone is striving for casual but failing hard. "He's been home two months, Kyle." "That's what I said to Aaron, but the kid'd never forgive me if I didn't ask. How're you doing?" Frank looks at him. "I got a kid who's pretty fucking damaged in the house." "Yeah, and that's just what you needed, huh?"

"That was Starfleet Medicalapparently there are some kids still there who remember you. Said if you felt up for a visit you'd be welcome to." "I want to," Jim says, and Frank thinks, right, of course, he probably wants to be welcomed like a hero: do his ego good. "I want to go." Winona looks at Jim for a long time after he tells her, and then nods. "If you feel up to it." She's shipping outshe says for two months, apparently there's a civil war breaking out somewhere and so she's ditching him with Jim (and Sam, technically, but Sam's never felt like a burden). The three of them had a fight about it last night with Sam shouting that Winona had to stay and Jim saying that he's fucking find and Sam should stop treating him like a baby. Jim won that one: but then, Jim wins a lot these days. So they head to San Francisco and see Winona off, and then head to Starfleet Medical. It's a tour of a hero, and Sam says he can't take it and sits in the lobby, stubborn and angry.

Full-grown adultspeople who should've been watching out for this kid, hug Frank smiles a littleit's not funny, it's inappropriate, but he can't help it. him and crythank him for saving them. For all he did for them. And Jim "He's too screwed up right now to be a handful. We'll give it six months. justshoulders it. Keeps walking. Smiles. Hell, it might even be a relief to have him drive one of my cars over the cliff." "Hi, sweetheart," Jim murmurs to a four-year-old girl. "Happy to be home?" The town iswell. Doing what they always do: keeping their distance from There are a few other kids who cluster around him tightlythe little girl is Jim but using Frank for the gossip. He thinks they're wishing that Jim had Asseih. Pretty little thing with dark skin and big eyes. his own version of what George had been for Winona. He thinks they're worried that Jim's alone, and the person his George could be one of their Jim smiles and looks at drawings and meets family members; stands up kids. straight and shakes hands, listens intently to status updatesand Frank realizes that it's not that Jim's just being polite and glazing over, Sam's visiting his grandparents after school, just to check in, but Tiberius he knows their statuses, like he's been following them for all these months. and Anne haven't been over to the house except the one time, right when Jim'd gotten home. Of course he has, Frank doesn't know why he's confused. Sam'd looked at Jim and said, "Hey, Jimmy, look. Pop and Grams are here." Jim'd still been oddly quiet, then, and Anne had rushed over to hug him and he'd flinched, and then Winona had stepped in and sent Sam and Jim off to go do something while he'd looked at them both and then gone to find Winona. "He's so quiet" Anne had been flustered for words. "Kid survived a genocide, the fuck you expect?" Winona had asked, tilting her head and staring at them with eyebrows raised. They haven't come over since, ostensibly for Jim's own well-being, but Frank doubts it. It's not for Jim. It's for them. Jim looks like George and he's fucked up like Winona (and he loves her, he does, but he's not an idiot), and Anne and Tiberius are happier to leave things at a safe distance. * As soon as Jim gets home, Frank started getting these calls from husbands and wives and brothers and sisters from all over the damn galaxy; the loved ones of Tarsus survivors. It was always the same: "He saved my kid." "My brotherhe just keeps talking about this kid, Jim?" No one seems to notice Jim doesn't eat a damn thing while he's there except a spoonful of chocolate pudding, teasingly, to make Asseih eat. She looks at him, then at the pudding cup, and wraps her small fingers around it. "Mine," she says firmly, and Jim laughs, touches her cheek. "Yeah, okay," he agrees, and then moves on. There's food readily available; baskets of pastries or fruits that Jim turns down too fast when it's offered; deflects onto someone else. "Ready to go?" he asks after it's been five hours and Jim's starting to look a little weary. "No, I gotta" he hitches his thumb upwards, and Frank trails him to the other ward, where a kid Sam's age grins. "Jim." "Tom," Jim replies, and hugs Tom back when the boy wraps his arms around Jim. "How're you doing?" Tom asks seriously, pulling back only a little to look at Jim critically. "I'm home," Jim says, lips twitch. "So one up. You're a fucking asshole, though." "I don't think I could take home," Tom replies. "I meangod, no. Did you go down and see the kids? Waitwhy am I an asshole?"

"I don't know if Jim's up to it, but we're at Starfleet Medical: San Francisco "That was a really fucking embarrassing interview, Tom. Really." could he come and see Asseih? She won't respond and one of the other Frank has no idea what they're talking about, but Tom flushes slightly. boys here says that Jim used to get her to smile?" It wasn't a thing when Jim was still in bed or not answering comms, but he's "Look, I told the truth," Tom insists. "And, I don't know, a lot of people around here were trying to like, twist shit around and you know howI just. better and it's March and now Jim looks at him curiously after Frank hangs If someone was going to tell it I kinda felt like it should be one of us, and not up, and Frank says, awkward, some politician or pundit or something."

Jim looks at him for a while. "Yeah," he agrees, finally. "I guess." "So the kids look good? I mean" he cuts himself off, seeing something in Jim's face, and then shrugs. "I can't umI get wicked flashbacks when I go see them, so I don't do it a lot. Asseih really imprinted on you, though look." He's tugging Jim into his room and showing him a wall of child's drawings, and Frank watches the way Jim's lips twitch as he's tugged along. "All you. I feel a little bit offended, since I was the one in the depths of the woods foraging for food." "It's the blond hair, it makes me seem heroic," Jim says, and Christ he sounds like Winona there. "Yeah, that's it," Tom agrees. "You gonnatestify? I got a thingy, somewhere, but my aunt got me out of going, 'causethat's just like, nothing I want to deal with, you know?"

They have a knock-out drag-down fight one night when Frank just asks him what he wants for dinner and Jim says that he doesn't know and Frank points out that he never knows but maybe he should figure it out so Frank can cook something. Jim slams out of the house, and he's gone for twenty-eight hours before Frank calls the cops and Winona. She's offdoing whatever she does, he's tired of asking, but Jim's her kid. "I've got him," she says. "What?" he demands. "He came to San Francisco," she says, like this isn't a big deal. "Let him be." "Let him be? He's fucking off his gourd!" "Frank."

"Nolook, he's" except he doesn't know how to say it. Doesn't know how to say "I'm not George and I'm not your father and I can't pretend that any of this is cool, and maybe when we were all kids and joking about you being psychotic WE WEREN'T JOKING." She's leaving him alone the way she'd Tom looks at him for a long time, then nods. "Yeah. Okay. Well, there are a want to be left alone. Frank justhe doesn't know how much more of this few other people here from Tarsus, and when I say 'a few' I mean the rest of he can take. the ward. Come on." Jim comes back four days after that, humming to himself. Frank stays at the nurses' station and watches the hours tick by, and realizes they're going to have to get a hotel room to stay the night, because There's a bitemark on the back of his neck, and when he heads up the stairs and shucks off his shirt Frank can see bruises in the shape of fingers no way is he driving back to San Francisco. and hands all over him. He heads down to the lobby to find Sam's already booked two rooms and is "Jim!" he shouts up the stairs. "Jesus fuck, what the hell?" eating pizza. "Yeah, no," Jim agrees. "They haven't subpoenaed me, so I figure what the hell." "Did someone do an interview?" Frank asks Sam, who looks at him in surprise and then says, "Some kid, Tom Leighton, he did this big interview. Talked Jim up a lot. It was back when there was all that speculation about who knew what a month or two ago. He kind of avoided the big deal stuff, thethe horror of it, you know? But he did talk up Jim a lot. "I just had to get out of here," Jim says, giving him a 'what're you, slow?' look. "Jim." Jim just snorts and slams his door behind him.

Frank wants to call Winona and ask what the fuck is going on; is she letting Jim go to whore houses? When she says she has him, does she mean she "Want?" Sam asks, offering Frank the box of pizza while he thinks about has an apartment in San Francisco (because if she does, it's the first he's that, and how it changes how much he thought everyone knew. They sit and hearing about it and they file taxes jointly so that's shit he should know)? Or eat until the receptionist says that he's sorry, but they have to go because did she let him go toclubs or something and what the everloving fuck is visiting hours are over. going on, here? Frank starts to go, but Sam puts a hand on his arm and goes instead. And after that he's out all hours of the night, he's drinking, comes home They come back down twenty minutes later, and Jim looks exhausted, with smelling like pot, and stops seeing Bird and skips his check-up, and the best part is Winona goes off-planet about a week into this horror. Sam, when he Sam pretty much steering him along. They don't talk on the ride over, and Frank goes to bed in his crappy hotel room and the boys go to bed in theirs, comes back, can't do anything about it. and in the morning they drive back home, Jim asleep in the backseat and "I'm fine," Jim says flatly to Sam when Sam tries to say something. Sam tight and unhappy in the front. Frank puts on the radio and drives, and Sam got into the Institutehe'll leave at the end of June. Frank's not looking tries t o remember when this wasn't his life. forward to it. Not evennot at all. * "You're likeJim, they can help you!" Sam shouts, and Jim laughs as a It goes to shit in April. horn beeps in the drive. The trip to the hospital was a sure-as-shit mistake: Jim's vibrating now. "Yeah, but I like Tara's method of 'helping' better." He grins, and slides out Restless. of the house, leaving Frank and Sam staring after him. Sam goes to take his entrance interview at Meyer's Institute and Jim "Maybe it's a phase?" Sam suggests. Regresses. Goes back to being that kid that Frank'd been sure he was gonna be when he was 12, before he left. Sam leaves and Jim acts like Tarsus and these last months never happened. Sam's only gone for two weeks, and Frank's trying to be supportive, or something. It sucks, he knows, that for he and Jim to get along Jim had to get wrecked, but at the same time it was kind of nice, to have kid who wasless hostile. It hadn't hurt that he was just quieter. "Maybe the last few months were the phase," Frank says wearily. "And now we're back to business as usual." Frank's right, kind of. He's turned into everything Frank always dreaded he'd be. Sam looks at Frank when Frank tries to suggest calling Winona when June rolls aroundsome fucking crisis she's got to go manage off-planet, because this is what happens when you marry a superhero. "Why?" Sam says, soft and sad. "She won'tcan't?I don't know. It is what it is. You can if you want but" he trails off and shakes his head, finishes packing and leaves.

Kirks are always leaving Frank, he thinks as he takes another long pull of his beer. Maybe he was an idiot for thinking he had any of them at all.

It gets a little weirder. He finds Jim and Steven in a music room after schoolAaron was just walking by on his way to practice, and the door was open and hello, there's Jim pressing Steven back against the desk, a hand 18. Aaron Hallet. possessive in his hair and kissing him hard, grinding their hips together. At first Aaron honestly doesn't recognize him. He's across the lobby, first off, Steven's hands are under Jim's shirt, and shit, Aaron looks away fast at the lockers, but more than that it's been a year and a half. Jim's hair's because some things you just don't need to see. shorter and his face seems to have decided to go in the direction of "gorgeous" instead of "fucking hideous". Aaron does wait around for Steven though, and grabs him when he comes out of the building. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" Aaron He's just standing there, on the landing above the lobby of the school, demands. He wants to punch Steven. Can't he see Jim's messed up? tracking the pattern of movement, one hand so tight around the book bag's strap that Aaron can see even from across the lobby that it's white knuckled. "Fucking, mostly," Steven replies, giving him a look like Aaron's the weird "Jim!" he calls, hitting Conner's shoulder. Conner turns and looks across, in one. "It's Jim." the middle of getting shit out of his locker. Jim looks at him for a second, and then Steven walks over to Jim and grins a little meanly as he leans against the wall beside Jim, flicking dark hair out of his face and saying something. "He just got back from, you know" "Tarsus?" Steven asks. "Yeah, I know. So?" Aaron stares at him. "It's fucking Jim," Steven says in exasperation, sketching something that could be Jim (or a palm tree) in the air. "You have met him, haven't you?" Aaron's not sure what that meanshe never really gets it. Jim sits with them at lunch, he joins the track team, but It's different. He's cagey, and they don't talk like they used to. Don't hang out as much. He doesn't eat, either, and Aaron has no idea what to do to help him. They all got those lectures on 'how to spot an eating disorder' and so Aaron kinda thinks Jim might have one butJim just totally doesn't want help. Aaron kinda stops trying so hard. 19. Jim Kirk. Frank hits himhe's drunk, Jim's pissed, it was bound to happen at some pointand Jim isdone. He gets his GED, and doesn't go back to school. He just can't get out. The last time he got out things went pretty shitty and so he figuresfuck, as bad as it is here, out there it'd be worse, and it's better when Frank moves out of the house (it makes him laugh, how fast Mom divorces the asshole).

And Jim gives Steven all his attention, bracing a hand against the wall by Steven's head, leaning in before grinning, shaking his head and rolling his eyes and it's almost normal as Steven walks away, but it's not because, well, Steven's not one of those kids they've ever hung around with. Steven's mean and his family is psychotic (his brother wanders around at night with a meat cleaver in her hand for no apparent reason) and if Jim's a flirt then Steven's a whore. Whatever, Jim's been gone a year and everyone knows what happened on Tarsus; it was all over the news, and everyone knows about the "Nine People Who Saw The Speech And Lived" (no seriously, that's how they're writing it. Apparently some kid named Tom Leighton went to the press and gave an interview and now Jim's an infamous survivor, even though the details are really really sketchy). Aaron shrugs off his hesitation and goes over to Jim, who twitches a small smile at him. He's got blue eyes, and that's weird, because, you know, eyes don't change color. Maybe they're contacts. Still. It's kinda unnerving. "Dude, hey," Aaron says, and that's the fucking lamest opener ever, because he hasn't seen him in over a year, but at the same timeit's kind of obvious that Jim's been seeing people like Steven, but couldn't make time for his old best friend. Aaron doesn't want to be his "old" best friend. "Hey."

"What was that?" Aaron asks, jerking his head after Steven's back, trying for Of course, when Frank leaves it's like no one lives here, because he takes almost everything; apparently most of it was his. casual, like they can just pick up where they left off. Jim liberates 20,000 credits from Frank's accounts; the asshole hit him, and "Dude is a fucker," Jim informs him, like somehow it's a revelation. he's always been an asshole. Jim calls it compensation for having to grow Aaron grins, and then hugs him, one armed. "Missed you, you asshole." up with him. The law would call it stealing, but Jim covers his tracks, and "Yeah," Jim says. "Well, it wasn't a picnic for me. So, homeroom, you can whatever. He doesn't care. He justhe doesn't care. tell me if you ever got Jenna." One day, while he's going through the boxes left in the bare house, he finds They head off, and it's like things are normal; like Jim never really left. That lasts a week or so? Then he's just angry in general and like he can't stop it showing. He goes on this whole big thing at their algebra teacher about how she's wrong, can't she see that that the whole fucking theory if fallacious? She makes the mistake of asking him to prove it. Turns out he can. "Did youknow Jim could do that?" Charlie asks Aaron, leaning over to whisper. "Uh, no," Aaron says flatly, because what the everloving fuck is that about? Jim's always done well without studying in math, but Jim's neverlike,what? He tests out of geometry, algebra II, trigonometry, pre-calculus, and calculus. They give him independent study. Jim just shrugs when Aaron wants to know what the fuck is going on. a box full of holos of Dad and Mom and Sam in the days before Jim, and Jim figures what the hell.

He sits on his bed and watches them, andshit. Shit. It's been fifteen years and Jim never knew the guy and Dad would have died even if Mom hadn't been pregnant but that doesn't stop him from feeling guilty. He's also pissed off that he never got to watch these; that he never really knew anything about Dad except for the little details Sam tossed his way casually. Like they didn't meanlike they didn't mean everything. Dad is laughing, taking the footage of Mom teaching Sam how to swim, Sam glaring up at her like a drowned rat and the image shaking because Dad can't stop cracking up. There are others, ones taken of Mom and Dad's wedding, both of them in jeans and t-shirts, looking rumpled and kind of smug and like they have the world in front of them, the justice of the peace long-suffering and Grandma Anne crying.

Jim feelsjittery, like he should stop watching because Mom never talks about it and Sam never talks about it and maybe it's supposed to be kept buried but he can't help it: now he's seen what everyone was like before and he just feelslost. Like there's something he was supposed to do or somewhere he was supposed to go and he didn't get there, anxious and weirdly guilty. He kept files, on Tarsus. He backed everything up on a chip and tucked it behind the chip in his PADD. All the details, and he's kept them becausebecause Kodos was dead and everyone who was going to survive did and maybe he wanted to forget, a little. He puts it in an envelop and sends the chip to the Federation Public Television, and drinks a hell of a lot as the shit storm whips into a frenzy as all the details and numbers and methods come to light, from the forging of transmissions to the hoarding of food stores. Jim ignores calls for interviews and hosts riotous parties and tries to get to the point where he doesn't care at all. He manages to lose track of vast spans of time: he looks at the date on his PADD and realizes he lost the entire months of July and August. It's never really enough, though, and he's sixteen before he knows it. Sixteen and drunk and strung out on pills like candy and alcohol like paint stripper and designer drugs to shoot up when the average ones just won't do. He drags a lot of people down with him. Steven's the first one he almost kills, but Jim gets him to the emergency room and then calls Steven's parents. They check Steven into rehab and Jim never sees him again. He does it a few more times; once he makes a girl check herself in because she tried to hang herself from his curtains.

It fucking he doesn't make sense. He knows exactly why he's like this. He understands: he doesn't comprehend. In ten years, Jim Kirk will be a household name and no one will remember that he was even on Tarsus. He'll have saved thousands of lives, made first contact with hundreds of planets, and have received a truly embarrassing amount of medals of honor. Now he's lying on the bathroom floor, trying to remember if he took the blue pills or the green ones and which ones don't mix with the vodka he has clutched in his hand. "You're an alcoholic at sixteen," Aaron says, like it hasn't been a year since he's even spoken to Jim. "You need help." Jim watches Vivian watch I Love Lucy. Pretty Woman's the movie of the month. He takes a pull, and it burns as it goes down; he's got no idea what the fuck he's drinking. He has no idea how the fuck Aaron even got into his housethen again, he doesn't think he's locked the door once. Looks at Aaron and laughs, head falling back. Too loud, but what the fuck. "I don't need any of this," Jim says, and then laughs again. "Until I need more." It's a song, he thinks; a lyric to one of those twangy songs about hard times and beer. He holds up the bottle and peers through it, at the room distorted. Edward is being a dick and ignoring Vivian. "Jim, you need help" "Fuck off," he says. Aaron does.

He's not sure how to live his life, not really, but he sure as shit knows how to They all do, eventually. keep people alive. He fucks most of them out of his life, moves on to the next person; they want to save him until they realize what that would mean, or realize he can't Sure as shit doesn't know how to die. be saved. Tom goes to university to study botony, which Jim figures makes some kind of sense. He gets arrested, let out, arrested, let out, arrested, let out.

For values of 'let out' being that he can hack the jail. He gets bored. Fucks Roberta is doing fine; she does the interview circuit and tries to describe Kodos' face when he gave that speech, the one that said they were all going up because he's bored, gets arrested because it breaks up the monotony, busts out because what the fuck, he can't be contained. to die. She's going to write a book, apparently. The rest of them Jim keeps track of; Kevin, Elith, Donovan, Angel, Jack and Frank has this vendetta and Jim gets arrested over and over again for stuff he's done and hasn't done and some shit he did years ago, when he was Asseih. They're spread across the Federation but hethem he feels most responsible for. The first ones he got out: the people he saved when he had like, ten. Or ninethat's the car. Frank sues him for damaged property; the judge throws it out. Accuses Jim of stealing the 20kbut Jim's an excellent no clue what he was doing, armed with a fucking hypo of all things. thief, and it gets thrown out because Frank can't prove a goddamn thing. It's like if they're doing okay he'sokay, or something. Later, Jim will realize that Judge Brenner and Chief Kiablick had a real soft He's good at numbers; even fucked up on scripts and injects he can still spot for him because a lot of that shit should have put him away for at least work the stock market, and there's Dad's insurance policy to draw from and a year or so, but the two of them kept on letting him crash and burn on his the money Sam sends him, and so Jim starts a scholarship fund for them. own. Makes him feel like he didn't abandon them or something. Sets it up and leaves it alone and yep, that's his good deed for the year. When Jim's eighteen, Sam gets married. He sends Jim an invitation, which Jim props up on the counter. He's not going, he's not sure he canhe's He doesn't have any idea why he's like this. Seems obvious: should be pissed at Sam for getting his life together and he's justhe doesn't want to obvious. Fucked up kid; emotionally absent mother; piss-poor excuse for a go. Too much fucking effort to go play nice with people he doesn't actually father-figure, real father martyred, abandoned care about. And Sam left, so. Whatever. And then there's the genocide. Sam's marrying Aurelan Rose Kensington, and a month before the wedding Doesn't mean that sometimes he wakes up and stares at his reflection and Jim wakes up with a massive hangover and The Ultimate HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy beside his head. He looks around; he must have presses his forehead against the cool mirror and sobs because he passed out in the bar again, because he's in the back room. Still, it's not like doesn'tget it. people just randomly leave him books.

Well, there was that one time someone left him a pamphlet, but that doesn't really count as the same thing. He takes the book with him as he heads back home, head throbbing. He needs a hypo, Jesus Christ. He flips through the book when he gets home and finds a hand-written note in the back: To Jim, with love, Aurie. Sam's number is programmed into Jim's comm. SoSam, and possibly Aurie, dropped by last night when Jim was passed out. Excellent. Jim drinks his beer and sits down on the bare floor of the living room and reads the book, cover to cover, curious. He sends Sam a message when he's done, because this shit's fucking hilarious:

doesn't respond, but he likes getting them. Feeling like maybe he's part of Sam's life or something.

He gets curious when he's twenty and reads Christopher Pike's dissertation on the USS Kelvin's final hours. He listens to the recordings "Sweetheart can you hear me?" "I can hear you." "I love you so much. I love you" Because he's a masochist, and then gets drunk. Really drunk. And he can hear it in his dreams, that shriek of metal right before the connection died and he just He loses a few months, there, before he can even crawl out of that hole, but he sticks to alcohol, this time, and maybe that means he's growing up or something. It ocurrs to him that he hasn't checked up on the Tarsus survivors in a whilenot all of them, he can't keep track of all of them (lies, he does, but he's not invested in them like he is in the first eight he rescued). Donovan is seventeen and in rehab; got addicted to his depression meds. Jack just enlisted in Starfleet after graduating high school, and Roberta is enrolled in school for early childhood education. Tom's done with his studies and is living on Planet Q, and is engaged to Martha Allen.

there's an infinite number of monkeys outside who want to talk to us about this script for Hamlet they've worked out.
He has a bad moment a month after Sam's wedding where he wakes up and stares at the math he'd been working on and realized that none of it made sense to him. He gets scared and pissed off and throws everyone out of his house because thatthe math, that's supposed to be the one thing; the stable thing. Not the thing that he just That can't be the thing he loses.

He can either sober up or slit his wrists, and Jim is constitutionally incapable Kevin lives with his grandmother and sees a shrink weekly, but he's doing of giving anyone the vindication of him living up to expectation: flaming the all right, gets good grades. Elith is seventeen and graduated; she's heading fuck out. for the Kennedy School of Government. Good for her, maybe she'll be He throws all the hypos and pills out; cleans the house out of all of it and president one day. lays on the floor of his bedroom and detoxes. It's the worst five days of his Angel he has to dig for, only because her family moved and she changed goddamn life. her name to Francesca, which he can't blame her for. No one wants Tarsus On the second day he comms her. "Mom." to be the thing that defines them. She's fine: getting good grades, happy. She comes and there are bruises around her face but she sits with him, coaxes him through it. Asseih is ten and fine, but she was only three when it all went down. Her he'd like to visit sometime; he'd like to see hersee what someone who doesn't carry this with them looks like.

He rips his fingernails go down to bloody stumps when he tries to scratch motherfucking theories into the walls; when he'ssober, clean, whatever, It's like the math; facts are important. It doesn't change anything, not really, he looks around the house and can't remember doing it. Can't remember but he feels better for knowing it. moving from room to room and using expanses of walls as paper; can't Better for knowing that they'reokay. Alive. remember why the fuck he didn't just pick up the PADD and use that, unless Mom hid the PADDs from him. Most of it doesn't make sense; the ends of theorems or proofs, stopping and He's twenty one, and Uhura is fine. The way she laughsthat's why he wants her. starting and running together frantically. Some of it does make sense; the stuff he did later. He writes a paper on the theories and publishes it under a false name; he's kind of incredulous that he can do that. Mom leaves a month after he comes clean, muttering about some bullshit in the Illyri system. He's not completely sober: he's still drinking. But he does pick up some hours at the Shipyard Bar, just to have something to do. He takes the bike after his shift is over and go see the Enterprise get finished up. She's the newest flagship built in the George Kirk Memorial Shipyard, and Jim's living under her shadow. There's got to be significance there somewhere, he should ask Sam's wifeshe's a lit professor. Not that Jim's met herthey're on a planet called Miranda and Jim knows he's gotta be the one to make that first move but he hacked her records; had to make sure she was good enough for Sam, and Sam likes to send Jim little random notes throughout his day. Jim The fight, well. Jim's always had a fucking big mouth. Typical Thursday, is what he's saying, and fine, he got beat up and he struck out but now this guy wants to talk and Jim's so not in the mood for this shit. Especially not from Christopher fucking Pike, who Jim's been trying kinda hard not to hate for writing that damn thing. "I couldn't believe it when the bartender told me who you were." "Yeah, and who am I, Captain Pike?" Fuck, his nose is like, crusting up with blood. He can't decide if the napkins wedged are really doing anything at this point, but whatever. "Your father's son." Not a surprise, not really, but stillmost people try to be subtle about slipping good old Dad into the conversation. Not Pike. "Can I get another one?" Jim lifts his glass; he's so not drunk enough for this conversation.

"For my dissertation I was assigned to the USS Kelvin," Pike says, like he's imparting fucking wisdom hereshit Jim doesn't know. "Something I admired about your dad: he didn't believe in no-win scenarios." "Sure learned his lesson." "Well, that depends on how you define winning, you're here, aren't you?" "Thanks," Jim says when his glass is topped up, and then gives Pike a look. Clearly he's here. In all his glory. Bloody, drunk, but alive. That last one is pretty fucking impressive, actually. He thinks Cupcake gave him tinnitus. Or one of his buddies. How many of them were there?

Fucking Starfleet. Jim's gotta get out; he's clean enough to get that, at least. He's got to get out but he's not going to go up into fucking Starfleet so he can die. He laughs a little and lays down. In the morning he locks up the house, hops on the bike and rides the nine hours to San Francisco. Figures it's as good a place as any to start over. (When I Grow Up I'll) Be A Monster Summary: When I grow up I'll be a monster (or, Tarsus IV, Illogical-style)

"You know that instinct, to leap without looking, that was his instinct too, and Notes: in my opinion something Starfleet's lost." Pike sounds like a cop or a social (graphic depictions of violence: genocide situation. Underaged: nonexplicit worker. sex between 15+ year-olds) Maybe a little bit like Dr. Bird, and wow, Jim hasn't thought about her (See the end of the work for more notes) in years. Work Text: "Why are you talking to me, man?" 1. Aaron Hallet. "Cause I looked up your file while you were drooling on the floor. Your According to Mom, Winona Kirk shot a casserole out of Mom's hands when aptitude tests are off the charts, so what is it? You like being the only she was bringing her some comfort food after George Kirk had died and genius-level repeat offender in the Midwest?" Lieutenant Kirk had come home with a baby. Casseroles are a thing in Riverside: new babies and funerals demand them. "Maybe I love it." "Look, so your dad dies, you can settle for a less-than-ordinary life. Or do you feel like you were meant for something better? Something special?" Jim's kind of tempted to check his arms. Maybe he's hallucinating; maybe he's got a concussion. No one in real life thinks this kind of corny shit works. Of course, he was pretty sure no one in real life was this corny, but. "Enlist in Starfleet." "Enlist" Jim's laughing before he can stop itnot that he tries all that hard. "You must be way down on your recruiting quota for the month." "If you're half the man your father was, Jim, Starfleet could use you. You could be an officer in four years; you can have your own ship in eight. You understand what the Federation is, don't you? It's important. It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada" "We done?" Jim asks, because Pike sure likes to hear himself talk. "I'm done." He actuallypays for Jim's drink. That's kind of adorable, in a patronizing kind of way. Is he bribing Jim with a cheap drink, is that what this is? "Riverside Shipyard. Shuttle for new recruits leaves tomorrow, 0800." Jim waves him off with drink in hand, and Pike pauses, hesitates like Jim's not playing along with his script and now he's going to throw in a hail mary pass to try to catch him or something. Oh, great. "Your father was captain of a starship for 12 minutes. He saved 800 lives including your mother's. And yours. I dare you to do better." Jim looks at him, holds his gaze, and then laughs. Laughs and laughs until he can't breathe for laughing, and Pike walks out like he thinks he still has a chance, like he did something here. "Kid, you're an asshole," Rexhame, the closing bartender, comments. "You crashing in the back or gonna try to head home?" "Yeah. Least I'm not an idiot," Jim replies, and then stands up with a wince. "I'll head home, I'm fine to drive." He's really not, but makes it there in one piece, drags himself upstairs and falls into bed with a grunt of pain because jesus fuck, he thinks some of his ribs are cracked. Fucking Pike. Aaron's met Lieutenant Kirk (and that's what everyone calls her, all of Jim and Sam's friends. She's not "Mrs. Kirk" like all the other moms, because she's just nothing like any of the other moms), and he kind of believes it she's not reallywell. Normal. However, despite Mom's best efforts, Aaron's best friend is Jim Kirk from the first day of kindergarten. Sure, they hang out with Conner, Charlie, Darren and Sean, but Aaron and Jim are bests. And everyone knows that the whole group is Jim's, because Jim is the one who comes up with the crazy plans. Mom's never been happy about it; Jim isn't ever allowed to sleep over at the Hallet house and Aaron's never slept over at the Kirks'. Jim goes home before dinner, and the only way Aaron's allowed to go somewhere with Jim is if he says he's going with Sean or Conner and Jim comes along. That way Aaron can plead ignorance and say, "He just showed up, Mom!" Sometimes that works. They're twelve; it's been working a lot less lately. Aaron thinks they're getting less cute or something, so Mom's totally catching on more. Which might be fair, because Jim's full of ideas, but they're all kinda hazardous. Like the time they all decided to try to float down the English River on a mattress that Mrs. Conley was throwing away and almost drowned Matt (who's sort of the wannabe in their group, but his mom is best friends with Charlie's mom, so they all kind of deal with him). See, the thing about Jim is, he's kind of a dick. He's brutally honest and acts without thinking, doing things like getting into a fight or saying something about what Jenna Dirth is wearing. Teachers are always sending notes home with Jim about how he could live up to his potential if he'd just listen (Aaron knows because he and Jim read them and laugh and throw them into the wind as they walk home from school). He's the first one to speak up in class, and when they're all fumbling around liking each other, Jim's the one who has a date. Aaron swears Jim figured out flirting at the age of seven, and he was "dating" by the time they were nine. Right around the time he drove the car of the cliff. That's one of the things Aaron means; Jim's kind of a dick. "You're gonna make her cry," he tells Jim. He's been watching Hannah for the past five minutes (Aaron has, not Jim). She's totally getting up the nerve to make the move on Jim. Of course, Jim's dating a freshman at the high school and they're seventh graders in junior high, but whatever.

Brian. Brent? Brody. Jim's dating some guy with a B-name. Aaron tries not to pay too much attention, because Jim doesn't keep them. It's this weird thing where it makes him even more of a catch or something because everyone wants to be the one who makes Jim settle down. And yeah, Jim's a serial flirt: dude's been dating since first grade when he bestowed kisses on their entire class. The principal hadn't really known what to do with him, but that was before she knew Jim. Now all the school administrators know Jim Kirk.

"Yeah." Pudding cup finished, Jim goes back to the food in front of him. He so totally doesn't get why this is a big deal, Aaron can see that, and it kind of pisses him off, really. "To another planet," Conner says, like maybe saying it out loud will get Jim to realize hey, maybe more than a week's notice would've been good. "Are you coming back?" Charlie demands. Jim looks at all of them like he's not sure why it's such a big deal. 'Course, Jim's mom leaves all the time so maybe Jim doesn't actually get it.

But the thing is, okay, usually dating is like "dating" where you sit together at lunch and maybe hang out after school and kiss (no tonguesalthough it's "No," he says. Jim, so you know, that's totally up for debate) but Aaron kind of thinks this Aaron's suddenly not really hungry. one is like real-dating. They went to the movies last week. 2. Frank Hallie. "She's making me cry," Jim tells him, all mock-seriousness like Jim's cried a The Tarsus IV settlement has been in development on for almost ten years. day in his life, flicking a glance towards Hannah from under his lashes. The planet had to be checked out, and then they had to figure out Aaron's decided Jim's either going to be gorgeous or fucking hideous when population, and then the plug almost got pulled because it's about two he grows up. He's right on the cusp: big lips, kinda big head, skinny. The months away from the nearest base and has an ionic cloud around it that hazel eyes work for him. If Aaron didn't know Jim so well, and he didn't have disturbs most transmissions, so it's hard to communicate. this hopeless thing for Jenna Dirth? He'd totally date her. Besides, even if Frank knows most of that because Winona had been a consultant on the Jim's fucking hideous, he's got enough personality to cover. board to approve colonization of the rock, and for the past few years he's Aaron steals a nugget from Jim's tray and nods thoughtfully. "In a kind of been looking at holos of the damn place every time she comes home. crying-in-the-soul way," he agrees. "I can see that." The guy in charge of it is named Mikhail Kodos. He's married, no kids, and "My soul is weeping like aa thing that weeps a lot," Jim agrees. "Dude, there'd been a kerfffle over the fact that he was a eugenics theorist about that's mine." He grabs it back and shoves the whole thing in his mouth. Jim nine years ago, but there'd been inquiries and character testimonies and has a problem with sharing. He also has a problem not eating everyone everyone concluded that he'd done it as a subsection of his political and else's food. Jim eats a ton. Because he's an asshole. sociological studies at the Kennedy School of Government. Charlie watches Jim glare at Aaron (who releases the fry he'd been Frank can relate: people do stupid things when they're young, and Kodos stealing) and then open Charlie's pudding cup. Charlie and Aaron exchange had probably thought it was interesting in a morbidly fascinating way... grins, because Jim's ridiculous and shameless. Frank met Kodos; they went out to some fancy-pants restaurant in San "Warning, warning," Conner mutters from the other end of the table, and Francisco and Frank spent the entire thing feeling absolutely invisible. Sam Aaron looks over and catches an eyeful of Hannah. She comes over to their and Ivana Kodos got on like a house on fire (but that kid likes everyone). table with a smile, sitting next to Jim and settling against him. He glances at The real shocker was that as soon as Kodos had realized that Jim was the her, nods with a slight grin that makes her light up, and then turns back to kid who liked numbers (liked, hah, like Frank hasn't repainted that damn Charlie's pudding cup. room seven times becuase Jim can't be confined to PADDs or pencils and "Jim, the dance, right? The last dance of the school year, and Bonnie and I paper), he'd actually gotten Jim into conversation. Jim'd been ten, a year after driving Frank's car off the quarry, and Kodos, instead of realizing that didn't know if you'd like, asked anyone?" If Hannah gets any redder she's this kid's kinda crazy, had wanted to know how Jim had managed to in the going to light on fire, Aaron's pretty sure. moment calculate when to leap from the car in order to avoid plummeting to "Um, I'm not going," Jim says around a mouthful of pudding. his death. "Gross," Sean informs him, shaking his head at Jim as he sits down at their Jim'd been charmed, and the guy actually kept in touch, sending Jim table. "You're so disgusting." puzzles he came across, and that's when the lobbying campaign started. "Dude, all over your face how do you even do that?" Conner asks Jim, throwing him a pile of napkins. Jim was nothing if not fucking persistent. The kid makes slide shows. With footnotes, and so Winona gave in. That was the quietest month they'd had in a long time, Frank remembers. Jim'd just been happy.

Jim mostly smears it around his face. Aaron thinks there's a chance it's on purpose, but hands him another napkin. "Why not?" Hannah asks, staying on point. Right. Dance. "I've got to go to San Francisco, the shuttle leaves next week." "Shuttle? Shuttle to where?" Aaron demands. "You visiting your mom somewhere?" "No, um, you know how Kodos got the grant money to establish the colony on Tarsus IV?" "No, but whatever." Jim's a freak. He watches the news and since his mom's a lieutenant he knows all this Starfleet stuff. "Dude, all over the news. No? Whatever. Okay, so I'm going." "You'removing?" Aaron frowns at him, exchanges looks with the other guys and tries not to feel like he's just been punched in the gut.

"Are yousure?" he'd asked her as they'd been signing the paperwork that would make Kodos Jim's legal guardian and medical proxy when neither Winona nor Frank was available. Whichwell. Frank had his job in Iowa and Winona It'd be mostly Kodos. "It'll be good for him," she said. "He wants to go." And what Jim wants Jim gets, Frank thinks as he helps Jim pull stuff out of the car and head for the shuttle station. Jim's not bringing a lot, but Jim was never one of those kids who collected stuff. Sam is a pack rat: Jim seems like he's always about to run away. Whichwell. He's done it seventeen times and he's only twelve. Of course he started when he was five, so maybe all things considered that's not that big a number. Twice a year, about Jim will be gone for at least five years: he'll do high school and everything there and then he'll be an adult and not Frank's problem. Frank'd be lying if

the thought didn't make him feel a little relieved. Jim's teenaged years aren't really something he'd been looking forward to. "You got everything?" he asks, squinting at the people moving briskly around them. Space travel makes Frank nervoushe's never left the planet, has no intention of doing it. "Yeah, I think so. You gonna go back and get it if I forgot?" Jim asks, and there's a little smile there. "I might. Depends on what it is. Underwear, yeah." Or he'll run to one of the stores here. It important to have enough underwear: it's one of those things you don't think of until it's way too late, and where's he going to get new underwear on a newly-established colony (okay, Frank more knows this from going on vacations and realizing that, in the middle of the woods, there isn't any underwear to change, but he figures it's kind of the same principle)? "Underwear's important," Jim agrees, mock-serious, hazel eyes dancing, and Frank holds out his hand. "Be safe, Jim." He means it as a blessing and a warning: remember that you're breakable might be more appropriate. Sometimes he thinks Jim forgets that. 'Course, Jim survives things like crashing Frank's car off the quarry, so he might not be wrong.

Frank makes a face at him, looking over. "What exactly is it that he can't have?" Sam shifts, chews his crust, and then says, "Dad." Because with Jim, it all comes down to George. "I thinkI don't know. I think he just wants but he's got no idea what, so he can't have it." "Yeah, you're your parents' kid," Frank snorts, taking a long swallow of beer. "Too much for simple man like me." "Oh shut up, Frank," Sam laughs, and leans against him just enough. He's almost grown up, but he's still only sixteen: still just a kid. Sam's always felt a little bit like family; Frank can look at Sam and feel like he's his kid, even though he had nothing to do with his genes. "We'll be okay," Frank says after a while. "Yeah," Sam agrees. "Yeah." 3. Jim Kirk. Tarsus IV is a planet closer to Mercury in size than Earth, and like Earth it's mostly water. The colony is set up on a continent the size of Ireland, and it gets at hottest 77F/25C.

The colony is 8,015 people, spread along three sectors and the central compound. Sector 1 is set up for livestock, Sector 2 for orchards and vegetables, and Sector 3 for things like barley and wheat. People live in "Yeah. Well, I mean. I make no promises." Jim slings the bag over his clusters of a couple hundred along the borders between sectors, dozens of shoulder and laughs, shaking Frank's hand. kilometers between each "town." The ocean is to the south, a river to the "That sounds about right," Frank admits, and grins back at him. "Don't forget east, and the island stretches into infinite-seeming forests to the north to let your mother and brother know you're alive." (which, rumor has it, hosts bear-like things fond of human flesh, but Jim's not buying it until he sees it). "I'll try not to get too distracted." "Don't be a shit." He says it lightly, teasing just a little. It's funny how easy they are right now, when Jim's about to leave Frank's life maybe forever. "Can't help it," Jim says. "It's genetic." "Yeah, well. That's probably true." Frank does remember all those years of watching Winona and George tear around the town, and then the planet, and then the galaxy. Everyone in Riversidehell, the county does: it's why the whole town's wary of Jim, Frank thinks. Jim's a handful, and no one wants to have to deal with it; happy to let Frank deal. Even their grandparentsalthough Winona's never really gotten along with Tiberius and Anne. "James!" Kodos calls, and Jim turns, grinning widely. Kodos has a bright smile, genuinely happy to see Jim, running a hand through his receding red hair and then extending it to Jim. "James?" Frank repeats, wry. Who the fuck is stupid enough to call Jim "James"? Who thinks that that kid even slightly resembles a James? "He's formal, what?" Jim shrugs and then he's gone, deftly navigating the crowd, and Frank's got the drive back to Iowa. The nine hour drive, where he's mostly ridiculously relieved that Jim isn't his problem and feeling like a complete dick for thinking that. "I got pizza for dinner," Sam says when Frank walks in the door. His eyes are red-rimmed, but Frank doesn't say anything, just hands him a beer. Kid's sixteen: he deserves a beer. "Pizza's good. Anything good on the holo?" "Probably not," Sam snorts, but they settle on the couch. The house seemsquiet. Even the tension is differentthis is the tension of loss, not of "oh shit, what now?" "You gonna be okay?" Frank asks as they settle on watching baseball. "Yeah. He wanted to go, you know? And Jim doesn'twell, he wants a lot of stuff, but he doesn't usually fixate on shit he can haveusually it'syou know. Stuff he can't." The spread-out layout gives the whole colony a larger feel, which is kind of coolit feels expansive. The colony is led by a council of twelve advisors and Kodos, and there are weekly meetings where each one of the clusters (which are being called towns but are ridiculously small to be towns) report on what's going on in their area. Tarsus IV has the requisite small military contingent which acts as the police force. Jim comes in with the last wave of colonists in May: people have been here since January, and Jim comes in time to see crops beginning to come in. He's got so much freedom here. All Ivana and Kodos ask is that he be home for dinner and he can explore everythingand there's so much to just absorb. Ivana laughs and makes him play piano with her and Kodos makes sure Jim's still keeping up with school work, but he wants it to be practical: knowledge is useless if you can't apply it, so Jim learns about plants and languages and politics and biology. Kodos likes to look at his math and just laugh a little in wonder. "Your brain," he says, "is a remarkable gift, James. A bit overwhelming, but remarkable." And maybe it's stupid to love it and want to impress him but Jim's never had so much attention in his life. Positive attention, where for nine months he's happy. Where people aren't full of fucking expectation and waiting for Jim to go completely insane or He doesn't have to follow fucked up lesson plans he gets to make the decisions. Choose what he wants to study, and it'she doesn't have words for it.

You're happy, right? Sam writes. Will you stop worrying? Have you met you? Which is a fair point, all things considered: Jim kind
of hasn't given Sam any reasons not to worryever.

Sam, why is a raven like a writing desk?

Am I supposed to be interpreting that to mean you're mad as a hatter?

Was the hatter even happy? I hated that book, Jim, you shit. I'm not reading it again. Mom's messages are more along the lines of: I'm beginning to find massive plot holes in this operation.

Tarsus for its scheduled check-inthat's next February, seven or so months from now. But as Jim goes back to the compound, he needs to know how long they'll all last at current rates: it's too big, and it needs to be quantified. He sits in his room on his bed with fingers that shake and eyes that burn. He pulls out his PADD and begins to pull up the reports. He hasn't hacked since he got here. The ionic cloud makes it really hard to access anything not on the planet's intranet, and Kodos gives him enough freedom to keep him occupied and what the hell does Jim care about crop yields? Except now he does, and finds them tucked away neatly. He stays up until the sun riseshe's got three PADDs and a holo display running, applying pertinent equations (8,015 settlers, crop yields down by 60%, people require 1,800-3,200 calories a day based on gender/age/activity level). If Starfleet doesn't come until the scheduled check-inthey'll all be dead, assuming that they don't find another food source. They have a month of survival left if all 8,000 settlers (because with current death rates, they're almost down to settled population) continue to eat at present rates. They're going to lose people to scurvy, rickets, kidney failure, heart failure, overexertion,babies to Vitamin D deficienciesdehydration, at least, won't be a problem: freaking river full of water right there.

George Lucas-level? Phantom Menace has nothing on this shit.

He doesn't miss Iowa, and he's not bored here, though he misses his friends, a little. There aren't kids his own age in the compound he's living in, but on balance he figures giving up peer interactions for what he's gotten is no big deal. It's probably Kodos' biggest mistake, giving Jim that freedom. Not because Jim figures things out faster when they go wrong, but because he actually thinks he can do something when disaster hits. He hasn't heard "no" in a meaningful way in nine months. By late February it's clear that something's going on with crops, because all of the towns are sending reports and people are actually coming up to the compound to talk about the rotting seeds. There are meetings called and Kodos's hair starts sticking up in all directions and the bags under his eyes grow larger. He spends less time in the evenings with Jim and Ivana. "I'm sure it's a hiccup," Ivana says, and Jim looks at her.

Pregnant women are a problem, needing at least 300-500 more calories a day than the rest of the population. That puts them in the 2,700 range, "Maybe a sneeze." which is still less than men 18-50, who are in the 3,000 range, but higher "A hic-sneeze?" she compromises, eyes dancing. She's lovely, but pale, like than kids, nonpregnant women, the elderly. Reallykids and women should a water-color. Her hair is corn-silk blonde and her eyes are a pale pale blue. be allowed to live calorically. Younger the better; anyone over the age of 50 She burns in the sun and flushes easily, and wears whites and pastels. She is using up resources without equal input back into the colonywhich is so so fucked up a thought that he shrinks from it, curls around it. swears, but it always makes him stop and stare at her because she says it so casually, and with so little inflection. She likes to make him sing with her Jim calculates the odds: they'll all starve to death. There isn't enough animal and she tinkers at the piano when he's reading; she's justcomfortable to life on this rock of a planet; they brought the livestock, and most of it's been be around. contaminated or died of starvation already. He can fix this: he's a genius, Kodos keeps assuring him and Jimhe wants to help. To save themand Sometimes he thinks with a pang about Mom, who walks around in jeans Kodos has to want to fix this so desperately. and a leather jacket and couldn't ever be described as pale; whose hands are more likely to reach for a hammer than a piano. Mom isn't comfortable, Jim works hard on how to stretch the food, but the thing isold people are a not like Ivana is. Sometimessometimes he feels guilty for thinking that. problem. Old people, people with physical diseasespeople who don't function at maximum capacity, or take more than they're capable of giving 4. Jim Kirk. are burdens on the system. It's not until June that Jim decides he needs to see how bad things really are. The whole compound is talking about the rotting crops and the virus Their right to full and happy lives, Jim doesn't dispute. It's just corrupting everything. mathematically this whole fucking situation is unsustainable. His equations sprawl; calculate rates of survival given differing variables until he knows It's really clear that it's not a "crops are failing" situation. The crops this situation and all its probable outcomes back and forth. It's comforting have failed, past tense, fact: definitive. They're yellow and brown like they get around October in Iowa, when they should be vivid green and sprawling just to know it; to have the concrete data in hand to work on those facts. The facts give parameters the solution has to be found within. Knowing the instead of shriveled and drooping. factsthe numberseven the bleak numbers: it's comforting. "It's bad," a man says bleakly, standing beside Jim. He looks too-thin, which He goes to breakfast thinking that he'll work on the solution once he eats is alarming because Jim didn't realize that it had gotten to that point where people are starving. "Some of the kidsyou look okay though. Your parents and takes a nap. have food?" That he doesn't suspect the equations will get into the wrong hands is just idiocy on his part. "I'm further in the compound," Jim says, jerking his chin, curling his fingers into fists and feeling suddenly cold. "Ihow long has itbeen like 5. Mikhail Kodos, Governor Tarsus IV. this?" That he finds it must mean something. That the boy wasn't hiding it: that "'Bout three months now. Kodos said he called for help, but so far Starfleet's he wanted it found. got no one in the area. Sector 1 says they're losing lotta livestock over this; The PADD was right there on James' desk, and his door was wide open; if it starvation or infected, can't say." The man nods at Jim's stunned look, then had been a secret, James is surely clever enough to have tucked it away. puts a hand on his shoulder heavily. "It'll hit you all soon enough," he said, It is one thing to know that so many are dying, it is quite another to see it and then, incomprehensibly, "Sorry." laid out in hard, qualitative lines, so exhaustively turned one way or the The obvious solution is to get Starfleet here faster: it doesn't make sense other. James has worked entirely within the data they have already that Kodos called three months agoin Februaryand they haven't had a amassed, but what he has done with it; what he has proven to be their only response yet. At most they're a month away from help. Not three months. option, is something that no one has dared yet to say. And the thing is, if Kodos is just trying to sustain them until Starfleet gets to

It is straightforward and unequivocating. James didn't annotatedidn't write in the margins of his own work the way he is given to annotating the books he reads. He has bell graphs for caloric/nutrition needs and age; projections of crop yields, societal input versus what they take from the colony in terms of needs. And then, deeper down the files, the entire expedition neatly divided up. Color-coded even, in terms of value to the colony. If there was ever hesitation, seeing the drain children under 7 are causing on the system, the drain of the injured, of pregnant womento see it. He copies the files onto his own PADD and heads to the council chamber. Councilor McKenna looks up. Of the original twelve councillors, only four remain: those who are on board, who understand how important this is. The first step was eliminating those who would pose an obstruction: McKenna, Havnevik, Agron and Hansard are good people. He can trust them. They have been allowed to live to serve another day. "Proceed?" McKenna asks as Kodos walks into the room. She shifts slightly in her chair to look at him. Kodos nods. "I have a breakdown of the population here," he says, handing her the PADD. "Get it to the General." "Starfleet?" "Won't arrive until February." He has ensured this: given them an adequate window of time. "We have seven months, councilors. Seven months to create a perfect world." He smiles, then. Can feel it thrumming under his skin, this warm satisfaction; excitement because he will no longer be burdened with the dregs of the population, those who are less than perfect for the running of this society. "Start spreading the rumor of plague and begin rounding up and separating the population," he instructs. When Starfleet arrives those who survive will believe entirely that those who died were lost to the fabricated plague. He can keep Starfleet at bay until the purge is through by falsifying communications; they are limited already by the ionic cloud (the only person who communicates personally at all is James, because he has managed to up the signal of his personal encryption key, but that too is easily counterfeited; rerouting his messages through a server and forging them will be no great thing, but that is worst case scenario. He believes James will understand and support him. He believes this). When Starfleet checks in, it will all be over. "What about the boy?" Agron asks. "You want to eliminate those above a certain intelligence. He is certainly over that threshold, and well over." "James is my son," Kodos says. "He did the breakdown. He is loyal." He is uncertain as to whether or not it is wise to tell of what he is doing. The boy is very independently-minded. He must be brought into understanding gently. The math indicates that he will understand the basic principle: the necessity and righteousness of this, of starting a planet with the perfect colony, and that to become a success within the Federation they must build upon perfection. He'll slowly introduce it, and after, when it is finished. After the fact, and James will understand and revel in the success of it all. He will eventually take Kodos' place and lead this world to be a shining example to all others. It will work; it has been so easy thus far. 6. Jim Kirk. "There's a plague?" Jim asks, frowning, because what?. "Seriously?" "The crop problem is also compounded by a spore which creates a very catching disease," Kodos agrees. "We will spend the next month rearranging people's living spaces. The infected to the north, so they are downwind of us, and the uninfected to the south. We have to contain it until a treatment is developed." He sighs heavily. "Moving so many people..I never thought of eight thousand in terms of 'a lot' but it is, it really is. We've barely been here a year."

"Can't you call Starfleet?" Jim demands, becauseKodos doesn't really seem all that worked up over this. Maybe it's not as bad as it sounds. Then again, plague. "We've sent for them, but the policy with colonies is minimal-interaction. The hospital is in contact with them to build a cure, which is fortunate, and if things get worse they will come." That soundsstupid, actually. Really, really stupid. "Oh." There isn't any math that can be done to make the oncoming plague any less ominous. He watches from his room as the homes to the south are closely occupied; the inhabitants clustered together on the compound's wall so that they can get food from the storage units along the south wall. To the north, the houses aren't all occupied: people are spread out over a large space. Maybe so that they can't keep infecting each other with new strains? Jim's not a med student, and there aren't a lot of medical documents he can get into (and he can't make heads or tails out of the work they're doing on finding the cure) On August 3, Kodos informs Jim and Ivana that he won't be coming home, that he has to visit the infected houses. The thing isthat seems beyond stupid, and then a littleweird, because he takes three soldiers with him. So Jim follows him. Because he's been on Tarsus for a year and a few months now, and he wants to know, and things like 'repercussions' don't exist in Jim's world anymore. He grabs a surgical mask because that's all he's seen the people distributing food wear , and Kodos isn't even wearing one. The meeting house, which used to be a storage facility but was cleared out when the relocation happened, has about five hundred people in it ; they're all crammed in, and Jim slides into the back, and There's a speech. He remembers that there's a speech, Kodos standing in front with his arms raised saying things like, "Survival depends on drastic measures. Your continued existence represents a threat to the well-being of society," and "Your lives mean slow death to the more valued members of the colony," "I have no alternative but to sentence you to death." He realizes what's going to happen before anyone else does: a sickly feeling in his stomach along with the realization that none of these people are sick. That there might not even be a plague. He gets prodded into a side room with eight other kids and a woman, and there's one soldier, and nine of them andthe soldier's got his phaser up and Jim just lunges. Pure adrenaline and shitty aim but he knocks the soldier down, fumbles after the phaser and flips the switch from red to blue and shoots. There's a moment of pure silence, and then sound filters back in: sobbing and the screaming of one of the boys, a consistent whine-thunk from other rooms, and Jim turns, fumbles for the door outside and busts it open just as the door into the room from the rest of the house busts open. "Go," the woman says, shoving Jim's back. "Go on. I'll" "What's your name?" Jim asks, because it's important to him, for no reason other than that she's going to die and someone "Elandria al-Raddi, I've gotI have a brother in the United African States," she says, and then slams the door shut behind him. For years he'll remember that she smiled at him; he'll remember the exact curve of her lips and her dark, sad eyes.

The whine-thunk of phasers going off and people screaming is muffled, now that they're outside, and Jim shoves the kids in front of him, hissing, "Go! Now!" "He's killing all those people, isn't heI mean, aren't they?" one of the boys asks. "Everyonethey're all going to die." Thomas Leighton is the boy who asked if Kodos was killing everyone: he's sixteenhis parents went missing a few weeks back and now his fosterparents are in the chamber. Kevin Riley is five, and his parents are in the chamber. He's staring vacantly at nothing, shivering. Jim pulls his black hoodie off and wraps Kevin in it; holds onto him until Tom takes him. He needs something to do: Jim gets that.

It's a long walk back to the compound, and it turns out that Jim is insanely lucky because apparently no one cares about the jailbreak. He has to sneak into the building, the whining sound of phasers echoing in his ears, though he thinks he might at this point just be imagining it; thinking he hears it and tensing, thinking it's coming for him. He takes a shower when he's locked safely inside his room, locking the bathroom door after him and putting the stolen phaser on top of the discarded pile of clothes carefully. He shot a man todaystunned him. The shower is hot, and Jim doesn't adjust it, lets it beat his skin red hot before stepping out, changing into clean clothes and drying his hair. He glances abortively towards the mirror but doesn't quite manage to make eye contact with himself.

Stupid. Elith Molson, Donovan Rezendes and Angel Suarez are all ten. Asseih Murphy is three. Jack Vaznis, Roberta al-Hiradi are eleven and twelve. Jim's He shouldhe could leave. He could go, but thisit's not going to stop. It's not sure why they were in the chamber; doesn't want to think about it. a clusterfuck no-win, but...Dad saved eight hundred, and Jim's not going to be content saving only eight. Tom looks at Jim over Kevin's shoulder: Jim's holding Asseih, but he can't, not for much longer, because she's getting heavy in his arms. Jim's leading them north, keeping through the orchard where they're less likely to be spotted. He's leading them through the orchards, heading north towards the sprawling Tarsus forests, heart pounding and his head deliberately blank. One thought: get away. "We have to stop soon," Tom pants, maybe an hour later. "We can'twe can't keep going." Jim squints in the pale morning light. "There's a town," he says, pointing at it. It's a worker's town, tiny cluster of five houses, and abandoned when everyone was relocated, but it's tucked neatly into a copse of trees, so it seemssafe. In the way that suddenly nothing seems safe, nothing at all. They're silent as they go into one house, Donovan and Jack going to cupboards to see if there is any food, Angel and Roberta going to see if there are beds. "How are wedo we stay here?" Tom asks lowly as all this goes on, sitting at the table with his arms around Kevin, who is sobbing against Tom's neck. Tom doesn't really seem to notice, looking slightly dead in the eyes. Jim thinks he probably seems the same way, and sits down too, shifting Asseih in his lap. "Ino," Jim says. "I meanyes? Stay here for a day, I can get you PADDs and a lifesigns detector andI don't know, maybe food or something." He thinks he can get the Meals Ready to Eat, and load a PADD with survival tech and get them knives and "You're not staying?" Elith asks, frowning at him as she sits, wiping furiously at her eyes. "You're not going toyou're going back?" "I" Until this moment, it hasn't occurred to Jim not to go back. He has to. Now that he knows what's going on, he has to dosomething. He just hasno idea what . But starting with saving these guys is as good a placea better place than most. He thinks that this is the first time Kodos has done this, maybe he canmaybe he can save other people. "I have to try to fix this." "He killed five hundred people today," Tom points out. "But he missed you guys." Which is kind of strange and suspicious and okay, now that Jim's thinking about it this was either a really incompetent operation or he's insanely lucky. Or it's a trap. Shit. "Small victory." "I'll take what I can get." He stands up, hands Asseih to Elith. "I'll be back tonightif you" he breaks off, not sure how to phrase it without freaking the littlest kids out. "If it's not me? Hide, or run."

He pulls on pajamas and then gets his PADD, going back into the bathroom and re-locking the door, sits on the shower floor, and finds the population list for the northern towns; the manifest for the meeting room tonight. Elandria Al-Raddi was in with her two kids and her husband. The notes column says she had a history of heart disease in her family; her husband didn't have any markers, but he would have undoubtedly put up a fuss. Couples seem like they're beingkilled together. It's only 500, but any of the people who were married were killed with their spouses, so he thinks it's safe to infer. Her kids were in there with her (Jim tries to remember their faces, tries to force his brain, this fucking thing that can create numbers out of nothing and turn them into death and life, to remember two kids' faces and he can't). Her kids were there with her, and when she was separated from them she helped other people's kids get out when she couldn't save her own. Jim puts the PADD down, closes his eyes, then gets up, going into the bedroom. He takes the food out of his pockets and puts them in his book bag, wipes the PADD and the server histories. He gets his bookbag and puts stuff on itstuff he thinks might be useful like how to make a fire pit and make traps for wild animals and what's safe to eat on Tarsus that's indigenous to the planet and might not have been wiped out by the pestilence. He sleeps, for values of "sleep", doesn't come downstairs and pleads sick when Ivana comes to check on him. She smoothes a hand over his forehead and cups his cheek and nods. "Do you think you can eat anything?" she asks. "MRE, maybe, for later, if I get hungry," Jim says, and Ivana brings him one of each; twelve in all. That night around midnight he puts on all black, slides the phaser into the waistband of his pants at his back, and slides out, down narrow hallways and hugging the shadows (so so grateful that Tarsus has no moon to illuminate the night, just the stars). 7. Tom Leighton. He didn't think they'd see Kirk again, at least not after last night and the guy kind of ran off into the sunrise. So the thing is, when Kirk shows up, breathing labored but controlled like he wants to gasp for air but won't let himselfyeah, Tom's surprised. He's keeping watch, tucked under bushes and at first he wants to run screaming, thinking they've been caught, but he recognizes Kirk. "Hey, okay?" he asks, looking over Kirk's shoulder for pursuers, reaching out to support him but then stopping at the way Kirk shifts his shoulder back and glances over his shoulder. Tom's stomach plummets, because pursuers

are a whole level of hell he can't cope with and they're not really any of them know, survival stuff. And it's got a lifesigns monitor in it, and you can try to in any kind of shape to run, but he doesn't see any and Kirk wasn't flat-out- get messages past the ionic cloud but it's just not working right now" running. Kirk's neck cracks and Tom realizes that that was all he was Tom looks at it, pulling up a few files andgod, this could save them. doingtwisting his neck to crack itand feels kind of like an idiot. "They're going to kill him," Roberta says softly, watching Kirk disappear into "I brought" Kirk starts, then shakes his head and begins emptying the night. pockets. "I" Tom breaks off, because yes, yes they are but he can't say it. "We Meals, ready-to-eat, Tom reads. Kirk brought them MREs. Twelve of them. should get some sleep. Gonna be a long night tomorrow night." "Is anyone coming?" Tom asks, curling his fingers around the packaging They'll wait out the rest of the day and then leave: he sends everyone to and trying very hard not to cry because this is more than he thinks most of bed and wonders how the fuck to make shelter. He starts canvassing, them have had in months. getting pillowcases and filling them with whatever they can find; whatever Kirk shakes his head. "I don't know." "So we're going to die." they'll be able to carry. 8. Jim Kirk. Kirk looks at him, and his hazel eyes go from tired to pissed in a millisecond. His life takes on a very very weird pattern, after that. "I got rope if you want to hang yourself," he snaps, pulling the MREs from It's like nothing has changed, with Ivana and Kodos. He practices Tom's hands and heading into the house like Tom's lost the right to hold Denobulan and swears in Klingon mentally (okay, saying "Spot runs fast" in them or something, and Tom doesn't think he actually has a rope for Tom to Klingon is a swear, but some languages were just made to vent anger and kill himself with. Klingon is one of them. Plus he and Sam had learned it under the blankets of Sam's bed, laughing into the wee hours of the morning, and so there's "Ihow are we" Tom says, trailing him. something ridiculously comforting about it). "We'll figure it out," Kirk says. "This is an M-class planet. We just have to move away from here, you've got to get into the woods. I'm pretty sure that It hits him that there's too much food on the table. He gets a flash of Tom and Asseih andshit, just everyone who's out there deciding whether or not those bears are a myth, but you can hunt in there and I infected all the lifethey can afford to eat tonight or if this is another night they should go hungry signs detectors so they can't find youit just diminishes their capacity to so that the food lasts longer and here he is, sitting down to a meal that he recognize lifesigns after the forest line, but yours still works so you'll see won't be able to finish and feels fucking sick to his stomach. them but they won't see you, you know? And, oh, here." He hands one to Donovan, who blinks at him. "Just keep following the river north." "I don't feel well," he says, not sitting. "So we die looking." "Better die on your feet then curled up in a corner," Kirk says flatly. "Better to die doing something. Not that anyone's dying," he adds, and Tom frowns because yes they are but Kirk's looking past Tom at Kevin, who's standing in the doorway and yeah, okay, reassure the kids. "You came back," Kevin says. He came back with food Tom owes Kirk so hard, and he doesn't even know the kid's last name. "And I brought presents," Kirk agrees. He lowers himself into a chair like an old man (joint pain, he needs to eat more fruit) and Kevin stands beside him, tucks against Kirk's side. "You're going to have to ration them," Kirk tells Tom, rubbing Kevin's back, "maybe eat one a week between all of you, but it should up your caloric intake, give you enough energy to keep going out and foraging or hunting or whatever you're doing. This is likeit. I don't think I canI can't get more, so whatever you're doing has to be enough." He can't, not without looking really suspicious and... "What's going on out there?" Roberta asks. "The night's total was a little under 500, I don't know what's happening tonight," Kirk says. "Roberta, you want to start getting these going, maybe break open that MRE?" Tom suggests. Roberta looks at him and then nods, pulling the kids away as Elith takes the MREs carefully. Kirk looks at Tom. "I have to go," he says, almost regretful. Tom nods, and then asks, "What are youdo you have a plan?" "It's a work in progress." Tom stares at him. This is...kind of horrifying. "So what do we" "You keep you and them alive. Let me worry aboutme and everyone else." Kirk stands, cracks his neck and then looks up at the black sky through the window. "I'll try to come back in a month or so. You guys should go north. Go into the forests and don't stop until you hit the ocean. Oh, shit, wait." Kirk leans into his bag and hands Tom a PADD. "I put likeI don't "You have to eat, James," Kodos says, smiling encouragingly, fondly. "We must keep our strength up for our people. We must stay strong for them in these trying times when our crops are failing and disease runs rampant." If he'd been Frank, Jim would have snarled at him. But Kodos isn't Frank, and he's killing people, and he's right, kind ofnot that there's a plague, because that's bullshit. But Jim's no good to anyone dead: Kodos would be lots more use dead. Jim eats just enough, slides the rest into the pockets of the oversized sweatshirt he decided to wear because he can hide in it, and tries to breathe evenly and not stab Kodos with his butter knife. Nothing changes, like this is all perfectly fine and ordinary. It's alarming what becomes ordinarythe feel of a phaser in his hand and the slight hum of it when he fires it (set to stun, always to stun, no matter how angry he is it's always always always stun because there are lines that you just thathe just can't cross). He goes out every night, and saves maybemaybe five a night. On a really good night he saves fifteen and the day after he watches for any sign that Kodos is frustrated. One night he finds people sliding out of a room and a soldier standing, watching them go with tears streaming down his face before he turns the phaser on himself. That was the first night that Jim had to throw up. He tries not to: the food shortage is getting really bad now, and he justhe can't eat the excessive amount of food on the table every night. Not without feeling like he's killing people that way. One night he undresses and looks in the mirror to take stock. He's never been he can count his ribs. He's going to have to add another layer to hide it. Lather, rinse, repeat: same shit, different day. It takes him a week of relentless repetition of the smuggle-people-out/playnice game before he even thinks to send Mom a message. It never occurs to him to message Sam, who he figures is busy with his own life.

You know who I miss? Miranda Reaver.

It's vague enough that no one will get itstupid 21st century references but Miranda was a planet of the dead and Kodos reminds him of Reavers; not human anymore, destroying anything that is. It'll read like a stupid message, but Mom will get it. Kodos is so busy with his councilors he doesn't really care what Jim's doing as long as he's not out taking walks and he stays inside the building. Ivana's migraines are worse so she's medicating. He thinks she knows what's going on and justcan't cope. So she acts like it's not happening, and stays nice and doped up. They have plenty of medical supplies. Jim realizes that the people he might havethe people who might have tried to save everyone or stop this on the council? They're all dead. Everyone who could have helped is dead and he's alone. When he looks up their dates of death and sees that a few of them died in April and May he realizes that this all was started four months before things were nearly this bad: Kodos was planning it all along. Sometimes, when he's going north, he stops in towns. He has to be careful; playing music in his room and a recording of him snoring. His door is locked and that's always respected, which Jim's never been more grateful for. But he stops in towns where people starved to death before the relocation, and once he's over the smell he goes in and where people are laying in their beds, jaws hanging open slightly with skin so thin it looks like it would turn to ash if Jim touched it; seems painted over their bones. Sometimes there are children, at their sides or in their arms. Laid down to die, and sometimes he can tell, by the way that the kids' bodies are more decomposed, that they brought the corpses of the children into bed with them; clung to them as they died and he feelsso so sick. The time he found a cradle with a baby in it with the pillow still over the baby's head, or the one where there was a tub and three small rotting bodies floating in itthose were bad times. Really really bad. Jim doesn't believe in ghosts, but if he did he'd think they were here. Ghosts of kids screaming to be remembered, dead because their parents couldn't bear for them to starve to death, or maybe worse didn't want to share the food with them, but Jim can't bear to think about that. It's a far kinder death, maybe. He doesn't know why he comes to these places: looking for survivors or food, ostensibly, but usually there's a good chance that there's neither: that they've already been emptied out by people making their way to the compound or running into the woods by the time Jim gets there (it depends, he knows, on how much of the rumors people have heard, and how much they're willing to take their chances. The belief is that the compound has foodit's more certain than taking chances in the woods). He justhas to see. Someone has to see, because they don't or they won'tthey sit up there in that fucking compound and they just 9. Tom Leighton. He's getting better at this hunting business. It's been a month; and they had to stop and they kind of made this lean-to thing. Apparently Elith's parents had made her help them build the house they lived in so she had a good time bossing all of them around while they tried to figure out how exactly to bind things together without rope. He's heading back with five rabbit-like things in hand , thinking that maybe he'll use one of them to make a stew or something; Asseih's having trouble swallowing. Water, at least, no one's lacking, they make trips every day to get more water from the river and oh, hey, maybe they should try to like, fish, except fishing would make them really exposed because there aren't a lot of trees by the bank, but they're settled about five minutes away, so, it might be worth trying.

"Kirk," he calls, and Kirk looks up and scans for Tom, then smiles. "Hey." "How're you?" Tom asks. "Oh I'm just...dandy," Kirk says, and grins, because yeah, this is kind of an absurd conversation. "Rabbits?" "More or less," Tom agrees, eyeing them as Kirk falls into step with him. The silence that falls is a little uneasyTom wants desperately to ask what's going on, but maybe Kirk's trying to avoid thinking about it. What Tom wants is for Kirk to say that Starfleet's coming to rescue them and give them hope that'd keep them alive, renew the will to live. He inhales to ask and Kirk glances at him. "You don't want to know," Kirk informs him preemptively, and the look in his eyes makes Tom want to agree that no, he really doesn't except he can'tnot know. He's the oldest here and in charge and he justneeds to know. He needs to know. "Oh, I really do," Tom disagrees flatly , sitting down and wincing at the pull in his back. "How many?" "Three thousand." "A month and three thousand people are dead?" Tom demands incredulously. "What the hell?" "He's got a eugenics theory. He wiped out the big portions in sweeps, and now he's down to refining the population." It takes a second for that to all filter in, not least because of how straightforward Kirk says it. Like it's not as sick as it really is, and then Tom realizes that it's "A breeding program." "Looks like." "When willis anyone coming?" "Communication's knocked out because of the ionic field around the planet. Our in-person next check-in isn't until February. After that it'll take Starfleet a month to get here unless there's a cruiser close, but there's no reason for one to be. The fastest anyone can get here is two weeks." "February," Tom says, because that seems to be when Kirk thinks someone's actually going to show. "That'swhat, it's September so that's six months." "I know." "You're talking about doing this for half a year." "Yep." Tom sits, trying to put this all together, to process and make some sense of it in a way that will make him okay with it. He wanted to know but he really really doesn't, in hindsight, want to know at all. "What's your last name, even?" Tom asks. "Kirk." Kirk says it like maybe Tom's slow. "Thenwhat's your first name?" "Jim. My name's Jim." Jim Kirk, Kodos' foster-son, right, Tom should have put that together a while ago. "Can you do this for half a year?" he asks after a long pause. "Whatever it is you're doing, this Robin Hood act you've got going on? They're going to catch youthey always catch them." He knows this mostly from shows and movies but still, Jim's a kid and he's a one-man smuggling machine and he's going to get caught because there are adults and there are a lot of them.

He almost doesn't see him, but then Kirk's frowning at his lifesigns detector looking tired. He always looks tired, Tom thinks, though that's an "You're fucking depressing," Jim tells him as they get to the lean-to and the exaggeration; he's only seen him twice, this time makes three. Still, he didn't kids start peering out. "Seriously. Shut up." expect to really see him again at all.

Tom does, because Jim looks pretty bad, and not physicallysure he's on the too-thin side, but they all are. He just looks...wrecked. On the brink of it being too much and he's just a kid. Jim's with the kids by the time Tom checks back in, smiling at Asseih and Donovan and listening to Angel complain about the weather and letting Jack lean against him. Tom kind of thinks, watching, that maybe Jim should be doing this; being with the kids, because he's better at acting like everything's totally going to be fine and Tom's pretty sure that he's more transparent than glass. When Jim leaves two hours before sunrise Asseih cries herself to sleep, and Tom feels hopeless, which he doesn't think was Jim's intention. He thinks...he thinks maybe Jim had a bad night the night before: maybe he hasn't been able to save anybody. He's not really sure how he feels about the fact that they're Jim's cheer-up detour. 10. Jim Kirk. Jim should be grateful, really, that no one suspects him, but mostly he's well. He'd have killed him first. Jim doesn't know why Kodos hasn't killed him. Jim's read the theory. About how women consume less in calories and if you keep them below a certain IQ they're less likely (well, anyone is, regardless of gender) to be serious threats. About how you only need a handful of men to start breeding the population after the cleanse is complete. Which is fucked up, really, because the idea that anyone's going to stay here, that it's not going to get pulled down around Kodos' ears when Starfleet does check in in February. This whole thing is pointless. But the thing is, Jim's name is on that list. Jim's name is on the top of that list. Jim is never going to be able to look at a stud bull the same way again. Of course, that assumes he's getting off this fucking planet, and He's not. He's going to collapse someday and just not be able to get back up, or he'll get shot. He'she's made his peace with it, as long as he diesdoing something. Shit, he'd rather die like that then live and be part of thisbe more of a part of it, because he recognizes those algorithms and they're his, he's doing this.

Kodos comes in and smiles at them like they're a real family. Like this isn't a fucking sham. He's showing no wear: his mustache and goatee are still vibrant red, and so is his hair. Hell, Jim's about to go gray, but not Kodos. It's like once this began, he totally relaxed again. No more bags under his eyes, he's just...fine. Ivana reaches over and squeezes his knee, and Jim glances at her, stomach tightening. She can't have missed that his leg is too thin, but she doesn't say anything, and he doesn't care why she doesn't; it makes him so grateful to her that he could cry for a second. Every so often, someone gets mad at him for saving them. Tonight it's a twenty-something year old guy who looks completely defeated, and now betrayed on top of that. "What's the point?" the guy asks, scrubbing at his face after Jim tells them they have to run. Now. "Kidyou can't win." Jim looks at him and glares, pointing with his phaser at the stunned guard. "Look, you can wait around for her to wake up, and then you won't have to worry about the point, which, asshole, is to fucking live." "You gonna storm the keep?" "Iwhat?" "You're not stopping it, you're justmanaging the damage," the guy snarls, stepping towards Jim. And Jim punches him in the face. "Come with me," he says flatly to the rest of them as the guy writhes on the ground, clutching his bleeding nose. They come. Jim doesn't turn around to see if the guy on the ground follows.

It's September and they're almost half of their original population. Jim can't save them allhe can't stop the soldiers from walking into a But the thing is. Jim's sneaking out every night. Sneaking out and smuggling cluster of homes and shooting everyone with phasers set to 'disintegrate'. food to the pockets of people (never a group bigger than 12all spread out, He can't stop people from being stupid and going back to their homes, and being discovered. that way they're harder to track), or trying to spot the soldiers to estimate when the hell they're going out: when it's going to happen. Little battles. He's biding his time. Starfleet has to notice that no one has It goes on and on and onhe shaves his head because one night when he sent any communication. Someone has to come for these peoplehe has runs his hand through it he comes away with this huge gross clump of hair. to believe that. Jim's buying them time, but not a lot. Not enough. "James, what have you done?" Ivana asks. She's getting more and more vapid. Or maybemaybe Jim tempts death, and Ivana checks out. Or maybe she's drugged, Jim doesn'the wouldn't put it past Kodos, but she's not going to get killed because Kodos is crazy but he loves her, and he'll keep her alive and so Jim's making the decision not to investigate. If she wanted to save herself she would have. "I figured it was kind of stupid to wear it long," he says, and runs a hand over the bristles a little self-consciously. It's risky because now he can't hide behind the hair. But the hair was a give-away. He could eat more: he could. He could eat everything offered and stop squirreling it away and giving it away but he can't, he really can't. He wants to throw up every time he tries, and as long as he's still functioning, and it can be managed he's fine. He's fine. "Play me something," she says, sitting on the piano bench. "Sing me something in Andorian." She smiles at him, and he sits, sings in Andorian, and plays mediocre piano and thinks he's a fucking hypocrite for staying here and not trying to kill Kodos. Maybe he'll skip his nap, try to figure out how to boost the signal again. Mom's not responding to his messages, which means either she's out of range or he's not boosting the signal enough, or...or it's jammed. But he can't figure it out, and if it's just that he's not doing enough, that he can fix. The other two...he's not sure he can do. It's not like he can hijack a shuttle or something; he's pretty sure they'd catch him, because those are even more heavily guarded than the dwindling grain stores. 11. Pawramudd Akar He'd been the pilot on the medical shuttle that had hurtled her and the baby to safety. That's how Pawramudd gets pulled out of his bed and hauled into the transportation room to deal with a pissed off Winona Kirk because apparently their Kelvin-survivor-bond is supposed to have magical powers. He doesn't even know how she got onto the Jimmy Carter. They aren't really close to any planets right now. He's helmsman on the Jimmy Carter; he manages to get Captain Orkney to listen to her and put in a tentative course to Tarsus because Winona Kirk on a mission is rare enough that everyone kind of takes notice. Then Orkney makes her sit down and explain.

"Something's fucked on Tarsus," Kirk says to him, and Pawramudd's having flashbacks to thirteen years ago and being scared as fuck of her, and that she'd been right all the time and he nods. "Fucked how?" Orkney asks, frowning and shifting her weight. "My kid's there," Kirk says. "I get a message a month ago that doesn't sound like him at all." He looks at her. "Jim?" he asks, tentative. She looks up, and she's still got ridiculous blue eyes and she's pretty, and that she's a badass bitch is always such a surprise because she looks so sweet. "Yes." He nods. "What are you assuming?" Orkney asks. "The worst." Orkney nods again and goes back to the bridge to get on the comm link, and manages to get the Samaritan, a hospital ship, to meet up with them. "You said a month ago," Pawramudd says quietly, curious, when they're alone. "I was on the other end of the quadrant," Kirk snaps. She spends the next four hours yelling at Starfleet personnel from Admirals to a few people whose titles no one's really sure about, and Pawramudd stays because...what else is he going to do?

"What have you done?" Kodos demands, coming from the other direction. "What have you done?" "What?" Jim demands, taking a quick step away, stomach dropping. Kodos grabs his hand, stares at the blisters like he knows exactly where Jim got them, and then at Jim. "I didn't want to believe it," he says, eyes flashing, face redder than his hair. He looks like he's on fire. "But it's been you all along." Jim doesn't know how to respond to that, mostly because he feels relieved. Thank fuck. It's over. It's over. "You were like a son to me!" he snarls, taking a swing at Jim, who really did used to be better at avoiding angry people than this. Well, that's a lie, because Sam was never angry like this. Annoyed, going after Jim hollering because Jim Concentration is really fucking hard, Jim realizes when he looks up to find he's on the ground with Kodos hovering over him, ears ringing . "Don't you understand?" he shouts, hunching over Jim. Jim's hands are flat on the floor, and it's in him to get up. His whole body screams to stay down. Whimpers, pleads, protests as he forces himself away from the floor, back into Kodos' face.

"It's fucking unsustainable!" Jim yells back at him Which is probably not the important part, but you'd think an eugenics theorist would know that "Lieutenants Kirk and Akar to the bridge," the captain calls. genocide is unsustainable; that eventually the people will turn or you'll lose "We must be close," Pawramudd says, and Kirk nods. control of your "allies" or become too beholden to themgenocide as a means to power isn't fucking sustainablenever mind Starfleet was due to They are, Tarsus IV in the viewing screen. "Scanners indicate a strange come back in February and would swarm the place with new people. amount of sonic energy," Haulu, the science officer, reports. "Lifesigns motherfuck Jim needs to start paying attention, because he can feel the scanners indicate that there are two thousand people in the compound blood streaming from his nose and his lip is split and Kodos is still swinging, andtwo thousand more much further north. That's not protocol for a settling colony," he says, frowning at them all. Pawramudd looks at the dots; and Jim feebly tries to get his arms up to protect his face. they're too scattered to be another break-away colony. It doesn't make "They'd never have known" sense. Jim laughs, because what? It's the wrong thing to dohe should be "Well, Kirk?" the captain asks, swiveling in her chair to look at Kirk, who's fucking punch back, getting Kodos' hands away from his neck but he can't, looking at the planet like she's goiing to fucking kick its ass. scrabbles a half-second too-late as the pressure increases and Jim's knees buckle, his vision graying out, Kodos' hands the only things holding him up Pawramudd would hate to be that planet. against the wall and Jim begins struggling even more when his vision blacks "Assume it's hostile." out. It is. They beam down and are immediately shot at, and Kirk throws a And then Kodos justcollapses against Jim, hard, knocking them both into goddamn grenade and then takes of at a dead run while everyone else is the wall, and Jim kicks Kodos off, struggling up because he knows those trying to find their footing. footsteps. It doesn't take long to figure out what's happened here, especially not when people start coming up to them.. It takes all of thirty minutes to figure out what happened, and some stupid ensign lets it slip and then they've got sobbing people on their hands: apparently the party line was that there was a plague, but none of the medics can find any evidence of it. People were slaughtered here, and within forty-five minutes of their arrival, Starfleet has a population of 4,000 people in grieving shock. 12. Jim Kirk. He's picking at blisters on his palms as he gets back into the compound. He's got them up and down his arms from getting into the grain stores, from using his forearms to prop away wiring. He goes to his roomwhen he gets this far, he's home free; he feels like he can relax and that no one is going to find him out. It's like his paranoia lessens, once his room is in sight. There's a rumbling explosion, and Jim stills, hand on the doorknob, craning to see down the hall. What was that? "Mom," Jim manages around his bruised throat. God, he's not sure he can actually stand, but "Mom." He can't get his feet underneath him. Notnot yet. He needs a second to cough and choke and cry, and she drags the body away and sits next to him, putting the phaser back in its holster and pulling him in a little. He collapses further, fingers clenching at the fabric of her pants (not regulationshe's not in uniform). She sits quietly, stroking his head and the fuzz of hair as he sobs into her lap. After a while he finishes crying himself out, manages to stop. He has tothey don't know where everyone is. He gets up, and she presses his phaser into his palmdoesn't try to stop him, just arms him. He's pretty sure there's something significant there. Or maybe not. He's so tired, and now he's got adrenaline but he's going to crash really hard, really soon. His hand wraps around the phaser and shakes. But it feelsit feels reassuring. "Shoot anyone who comes at you who isn't Starfleet," she tells him, pulling him along with her down the hallways, and he realizes that the phaser's light is unfamiliar and red, not the cool blue he's gotten used to.

"Is that your policy?" he demands, following her and flipping the phaser to 'stun' because jesus fuck, Mom . He gets that she's freaked for him but killing everyone isn't the answer. There are lines he won't cross, not even now. "Because I've got a lot of civilians here, Mom."

He sleeps on the Jimmy Carter, and as soon as they're able to they're being beamed to Earth Spacedock; beaming from ship to base to ship until they're in range for the dock, and then hustled into a shuttle headed for Earth. Mom's hand is warm on his back, guiding him. It takes all of twelve hours, "You've got," she says, frowning at him like she doesn't get what he's saying and when they're above Earth Sam calls the comm Jim hasn't realized he's holding. Actually, Sam's been calling, the log is full of his missed calls. Jim here, and he'd explain that yeah, he saved their lives so they're his just happens to be awake and aware enough to take this one. responsibility but he's pulled up short because in the absolute ruins of the courtyard are a few thousand people, the majority of whom are colonists "Yeah," he manages tiredly, pressing his head into the window. the rest are Starfleet personnel, and that's great, but how the fuck did they "Jim!" Sam shouts, and Jim grimaces against the sharpness of his voice. find them all, he destroyed the lifesigns "Jim! Oh my god, Jim" And then he remembers right, Starfleet's here to help, and they would have had their own lifesign indictators, and he has no idea how long he was up in that hall crying, so they totally could have gathered everyone. With beaming tech it'd only take a few seconds. "'M okay," Jim says. He's going for reassuring; he's pretty sure this is what epic failure looks (sounds) like (no, epic failure is thousands deadno. Bad line of thought).

"You are not," Sam snaps back, annoyed and familiar and Jim chokes just a Some people are crying, hugging people they thought were dead, and some little on that because god, Sam. people are in shock and some people are screaming and fightinglike Tom. "Yeah, there's that," Jim agrees. He needshe needs to cry or laugh or It takes Jim a second to recognize him, and then he can see that scream but he's justhe's just so tired. the kids are the ones who look the most terrified. "Let me talk to Mom, Jim," Sam demands. "Tom," Jim says hoarsely, and then again louder. Tom turns to look at him, stops fighting with the Starfleet personnel. "It's over. We made it. It's okay." Jim hands it over, and the light comes on indicating they're about to land at the Earth Spacedock. "We" Tom begins, and then looks at the adults, then the kids, and Jim walks under his own power off the shuttle and into the bay area. There's justcollapses and cries. And that sets off a chain reaction that freaks all a woman with a tricorder who tries to get close but then catches a look of the other kids out and Jim could just hit Tom, because at least Jim had the Mom and, well. Jim flinches when a few people run by, and then there's one decency to have a breakdown where no one could fucking see him. God, person. he's such an asshole. "Hey, Jimmy," Sam murmurs, and then guides them down to the floor right "Jim," Mom says almost impatiently, because yeah, fine, she wants to get in the middle of the station, cradling Jim against his body and Sam is so him checked out by doctors and then onto the ship and headed for Earth warm, and solidhe's solid. He can feel Sam's hand running over the knobs and out of here because he's her only priority, but he's got responsibilities of his spine and the bumps of his ribs even through the layers of clothes and and they don't stop just because Starfleet shows up. Jim sobs even though he doesn't want to; is terrified that he won't stop this "Yeah, in a sec," he says, climbing over debris (what the hell did she do, time. So he chokes on it, naps a little; tries to work up the strength to get up. blow everything to motherfucking shit?). "Asseih. Hey. Kevin. Hey, look at Looks up from his awkward angle at Sam's familiar face and re-memorizes me." him after a year of being away. Seventeen's a good look on Sam. They're moving awaythey're all afraid of the advancing officersall who He looks for Mom, and Sam says, apparently reading his mind or look nothing but kind and pitying, and they turn to look at Jim, and they'd something, "She had to go kick ass. I told her not to worry about it, we're head towards him, he's sure, if there weren't more officers in the good." background behind him. Jim wants to say that he's not, actually, good, but if she's kicking ass then "Wait," Jim says to the officers, and then looks at the kids. "Hey. Heyshut that can only mean good things for him and Sam won't leave. He nods. up. Watch." And then Jim turns to the officers and very deliberately hugs He stands with an effort, and then says, flatly, "I'm hungry." It'sit might be them. Each one. true. His body gave up trying to signal hunger to him a while ago, but it's the He can barely stand, and they're more catching him, stiffening with surprise right thing to say. and then rubbing his back, and he stops looking at them after the sixth one "That revelation right there?" Sam says, wry and sarcastic, hands warm on because they're crying like Jim's breaking their heart. Jim's shoulders as they stand. "That's rocking my world." He hugs all seventeen of them, and then looks at the kids, whowell, it "Shut up," Jim says, and barks a rusty, surprised laugh when he gets a worked, because they're sort ofinching towards them. He doesn't know good look at him. "Dude," Jim says, pained and trying not to laugh more but how else to prove that these are the good guyshe's not surehe's not it's so so stupid. "Your fly is open." sure that just the words are enough. "It's okay," Jim says to the kids, and he's the guy who saved them, and who Sam makes a face at him and zips up, and then has to lift him up like he's a kid to get him to an EMT, who says no food, not even close; not until Jim's the hell are they going to trust if not him? "They're the good guys." been checked over by a specialist. He's shivering as they walk to the shuttles and then to the ships; shock. He knows he walks with Mom, but after that he kind of zones out. It's over, and They get him onto a medical shuttle and take him to Starfleet Medical: San Francisco. There are blood tests and Sam waving papers and Jim's so done, and he's really just so so fucking tired. exhausted he can't even track the movementit makes him too dizzy. They "How'd you?" he begins, looking at Mom sideways. all must be here, he knows, clogging up the IICU and regular ICU and the "I called you Rodney McKay about a month ago and you didn't respond in Pediatric ICU, but he's in a private room and thinks that they're not his all caps. Something was up." responsibility anymore. That'skind of par for the course. Of course that was what brought her. How could it have been anything else? A message he didn't respond to tips her off to bring in the cavalry: right. Sam glances around with a frown, but looks at Jim. "Go to sleep," he says.

"I can't," Jim says, shaking his head. "I ca" "Jim. There's no one left to save," Sam says, squeezing his hand. Sam means that they've all been rescued: Jim's brain thinks that means he's the only survivor. He sleeps until Frank walks in, wakes him up with a start and Jim is convinced that he's Kodos coming for him. Jim's hand closes on the lamp and hurls it at Frankit's Frank, just Frank, who stares at himcompletely bewilderedand then Sam's shoving him out, pushing Jim back down. Jim stares at the lamp, shattered, and feels completely fucking confused. He didn'the hadn't meant He can't fucking breathe. "Calm down. Jim. Jim!" Jim shakes his headhe can't clear it. It feels like he's being choked again, hands grasping around his throat and pressing pressing pressing pressing "Here," Sam says, and shoves a PADD into his hands, closes Jim's fingers around the stylus. "Jim, come on. Come on, you're fine. Breathe, come on, please just" It takes a second to focus on what it is, but when he does he's so surprised that it knocks the panic right out of him. There's a millennium problem up, variables and values spread out simply in front of him. Jim chokes a little, because god, yes. This. Finite solutions with theoretical applications. It can't be twisted orit's theoretical. There's no chance for practical application: not yet, anyway. It's safe.

Okay, he can't do this problem. He's out of practice. Time to start lowerhe flips through problems until he finds Kirrria's theory. He'll work his way back up. He's going to be fine. And if he can't be fine, he'll be functional. He jerks awake an hour later and hacks into the hospital to monitor everyone; he doesn't know all of their names, but hell, they were all admitted at the same time, so they're not hard to find. Three people die in the first three hours; they were too far gone and the shock of the last five hours was too much. It makes him feel cold, like a failure. He keeps checking back. 13. Miko Kasab, MD. Fourteen years ago, Winona Kirk was her patient after the Black Hawk was attacked and limped back into space. Kirk had almost died, been comatose for months. Thirteen years go, she'd had both Winona and James Tiberius Kirk as patients when she did the final check-up for release after the disaster of theKelvin. She's the one who did James's exhaustive allergy work-up; his allergies are worse than his mother'spossibly exposure to radiation after theKelvin, possibly just really terrible genetics. Over the course of the last thirteen years, she's had Winona Kirk as a patient a few more times, and she's always had to be coaxed back from the brink of death. Miko gets stuck with her because everyone else is absolutely terrified of her. She should have been immediately assigned to Jim's case. She's not, and that's fine until she sees Retinox 5 flash on the screen as a treatment. He's deathly allergic to that shit, and it's in everything. That his doctor misses it in his chart is just stupidity.

He settles a little bit further down, draws his knees up, and begins to work in She gets there in time, yells back and forth with the administration and Uri earnest, and blocks everything else around him in favor of it. Haradi (who is such a pompous jerk), and finally gets him as her patient. Sam explains, quietly, that Mom had to go kick some ass and that's fine She doesn't get into the room until late, and the kid on the bed is Jim feels better knowing she's out there looking for anyone they missed His eyes are sunken and his skin is pulled tightly over his face. He's not because if he can't beat least it's her. nearly as bad as the other kids she's seen today; he had access to food, He comms her and she picks up. "Yeah, baby?" she thinks, but not a lot of it. "Some people swam the river," Jim says. "Anddidn't make it. But the The room is 30C, and he looks comfortable enough, but his collarbones bodies" cut out of his chest and the hospital gown hangs limply from his frame even as he's sitting calmly in the bed, looking at a PADD, tapping his stylus "I got it," she says. "You eating? Listening to your brother?" against the mattress. "You're coming back in two days, right?" Jim says, and maybe he's not okay There's an empty cup on the tray beside him, but the oatmeal hasn't been with her being gone, not like he thought. noticeably eaten. She doesn't know if it's because he hasn't noticed it or "Yeah, Jimmy. Two days." She sounds hoarse, and Jim nods even though because he's not eating. she can't see it. "I'm Sam," the boy next to him says. He doesn't stand, but he does look at "Okay," he says. "Okay." her. "I'm his brother." His hand is wrapped around James', thumb stroking along the ridges of bone. He hands the comm back to Sam, who pockets it, watching Jim carefully. "I'm okay," Jim says, and maybe it's a lie but it's less of a lie than it's been lately. He drinks some water, picks at oatmeal. It makes him want to throw up, though, so he doesn't keep eating it. Sam gets him another cup of water. There are conversations held around himeventually the doctor comes in to talk to them about treating Jimabout how he's at risk for kidney failure, but how they're more worried about his brain. They take Sam out of the room to tell Sam about it like Jim's not aware of just how bad he is. Like somehow if Jim hears it it'll be exacerbated: self-fulfilling prophecy of mental breakdowns or something. These people have clearly never met Mom: Jim's got good genes for being psychotic. Mom's at least functional. Jim could totally be a functional psychotic. She remembers that George had sat just like that when Winona had been in a bed like this, and then wonders where the hell Winona is. "Are you his legal guardian?" she asks, frowning at her PADD. He was two when Winona was first in here, so he's probably 17 now. He hands her a paper. "I'm his medical proxy. Our stepdadJim's not hot being around people right now. We figured the less stress the better, and Mom's" he waves a hand and then shakes his head. "So I'll be here." She nods, frowning, because what? She left her thirteen-year-old with the seventeen-year-old? "I'm Miko Kasab, I'll be James's" "Jim." Sam's the one to correct her, not Jim, and from Sam's look that's unusual. She'll have to get Vaila Bird on this case. She's an excellent trauma psychiatrist, and Jim Kirk is going to need excellent.

"Jim's," she corrects herself, "doctor. We're going to start you on intravenous drip to rehydrate you," she says, addressing Jim. He has blue eyes like his fatherbluer. It's weird that she remembers that. It's even more weird because his chart says 'hazel'. She makes a noteit could be a protein break-down problem or a pigmentation fluctuation, which they would have to watch. Then again, it could just be environmental and traumarelated. "We have a mix that won't interfere with your allergies to take care of vitamin deficiencies, and we're going to have you eat every two hours to get your stomach used to eating again." "I ate," Jim tells her. She looks at him, then at the chart. "I ate more than they did," he amends. "Jim, you still look like shit," Sam snorts, and Jim looks at him, then shrugs one sharp shoulder. "We're not judging how much you ate compared to everyone else," she says, gentle. "We're focused on you right now." She turns to Sam, and he nods towards the door, coming outside the room with her. She's not sure how much Jim should hear right now: won't know until Bird gets down here to do an evaluation. "He's right," she says quietly. "Comparatively he was in much better shape nutrition-wise than the others. With him we're more worried about exhaustionhe's presenting more like the type of anorexic who eats the bare minimum and loading up on nutrients when they do eat rather than a starvation sufferer who simply lacks food altogether. The psychiatrist will work with him to see how much of that is the case and how much of it has to do with the fact that maybe he just had access to more food that was better for him than the others. "It's not uncommon for people in these situations to overestimate the conditions of their bodies, and overexert. He has joint damage, and a few stress fractures, buthe's more at risk for psychological issues than physical." "Like what? Jim'sJim's not" he breaks off and shakes his head, thinking better of whatever it was he was going to say, folds his arms over his chest, hunches his shoulders forward. "Like what? Suicidal?" "We don't know. It's possible that he might be, or he might become suicidal; we're going to watch him for it carefully." She pauses, and then says, trying to be as gentle as possible, "Are you worried about something else?" He looks at her and then shakes his head. "No. I was just going to say he wasn't crazy, 'cause I'm always telling people that at home. He's not, he's justJimmy." He scrubs his face with a hand and then folds his arms against his chest again. "Um, what else?" "He's going to need to have his relationship with food assessed. We might find that he eats and hoards; we might find he refuses to eat flat out; he might be fine after the initial period of having access to so much food that he's overwhelmed by it. We won't know until he's healthy enough to eat. "He could have an anxiety disorder, it's very likely that he's going to have a severe case of post traumatic stress disorder. Doctor Bird will be the psychiatrist for Jim's case, she'll be in later to talk specifics for you." "He's just" Sam breaks off, shakes his head. "He's Jim." George said that too. "It's her." Like it meant something, or everything. Maybe it does. "We're not just treating his malnutrition in terms of the obvious signs of starvation, Sam. We're treating him for an irregular heartbeat, and massive vitamin deficiency. He's highly anemic with low blood pressure. He shouldn't have been able to walk at all, when you saw him, and compounding all of this is his sleep deprivation. It's going to be very slow goingthis could be months." Sam nods. "Months," he repeats. "Okay."

14. Winona Kirk. "He's in bad shape," Sam says. He sounds wrecked. She rubs her forehead as the shuttle door opens up and she walks off into the unloading area of Earth's Spacedock. She's hidden Ivana Kodos, now Helen Karidian. Checked her into a detox program for the depressants she was on. She knew Ivana a few years ago; she might have been a debutante and a coward but she wasn't a war criminal. Winona's never really had a problem being judge, jury and executioner, but she's willing to be merciful with the wife: she just married badly. It didn't hurt that the first thing Ivana said when she saw Winona was, "Jim's all right, isn't he? God, I'm soI didn'tI tried." Winona believes her; and at the end of the day it doesn't really matter what she does right now. If she finds out Ivana was complicit or hurt Jim, it's not like she can't just come back and kill the bitch. "How bad?" she asks Sam. "I don't know. Bad? I don'tFrank's been really awesome: he will be really awesome and stuff but" Good parents would rush home, but she thinks most parents don't walk off of shuttles after hiding the widows of genocidal maniacs to find admirals waiting nervously. She raises an eyebrow. What fresh hell is this? "Sam? I've got shit I have to sort out, call me if things get worse, if not I'll see you in three days. Tell Jim: three days." "You said two," he says, flatly. "Jim is counting on two, Mom." "Three more will have to do it, Sam," she says firmly, because she's an asshole but this, whatever it is, is bad. Admirals don't usually seek her out. "What?" Winona asks, nodding to the ensign who hands her her new orders. She'll contact whomever they're from and tell them to fuck off later. "He was the only person in the compound who can give us actionable intelligence." Tishan falls into step. His white hair is a little mussed around his antennae, like he came here as soon as he heard she was going to be on the next shuttle. She glances at her watch: it's 0332. She shuts the door to the conference room and looks at him. "The wife's dead, Kodos is dead, we've got the doctor and we've got the military personnelthe ones who survived" he says pointedly, lifting an eyebrow. His skin looks strangely green in the light of the space dock; her own skin looks jaundiced as she looks down at it. It's always so gratifying when people believe her when she's lying: she's the one who said Ivana was dead. "If they don't like my methods they should have listened when I said my kid was in trouble, two months ago," she says flatly. "There's talk about charging him with complicity." She's aware that she's not balanced, and that sometimes it shows on her face when she's ready to snap. She thinks this time around she's fucking justified. "Who?" "Kirk" "Who?" "It won't go anywhereI mean, he's thirteen, you can't expect a thirteenyear-old to be" Tishan hastens to say, antennae twitching almost nervously. Which means it's gaining momentum, and she shouldn't have been gone for two daysshe thought it'd be safe to be gone that long. "But there are rumblings, and I wanted you to be aware. Maybe stay in San Francisco? I know you're not under our jurisdiction, even though you are still officially ours, so consider it friendly advice and a personal favor."

It pays to work for the intelligence service sometimes. "I want the name, Tishan." "You can't kill her." "I won't." "Admiral Norx." She pays a visit to Admiral Norx, and then Admiral Archer, and then the president. Jimmy never even gets subpoenaed to testify in trials. Later, when he's angry and raging against the world, he gets pissed at her that she took the option away from him. She doesn't care. 15. Sam Kirk. "How is he?" Sam jerks awake, and blinks into the dim glow; three days later, at least she kept this promise. God, Jim'd been so pissed in that weirdly quiet way he's getting pissed. "Mom." "How is he?" she repeats, sliding the door shut and coming around the bed. "Alive. He keeps hacking the hospital database to check on everyone else, but I can't make him stop it," Sam says as she wraps her arms around him. He holds on tight; he knows she had to go do whatever it was she was doing. He's used to it, but fuck, he's glad she's here and it's not all on him. "Sounds about right." "They're treating him for," he breaks off as she picks up the MediPADD and reads it. "They're sending him to a shrink?" she asks. "How's he taking that?" "So far so good. Bird's cool, she's not like, shoving at him. I don't know if she's even read all his aptitude tests, even though they're in his file." That's always been the problem; Jim doesn't react well to being told that he's not living up to his potential, and inevitably a shrink brings it up and Jim storms out and refuses to go back. Not that Sam thinks Jim shouldn't be forced to go back: Jim's almost died more times than Sam can count, not that Jim would ever think of it as being suicidal. No, usually it's stupid shit like jumping off of roofs with "wings" onkid stuff that Sam never did, but Jim doesn't really get limits. Kid needs to see someone. "What happened?" he asks as she sits down and holds Jim's hand, bracing her forearms against the bed and watching him sleep. Sam knows the feeling; he can't quite look away. "Kodos killed 4,092 people," she says. "He's dead, right?" Sam demands after it sinks in, because motherfucker, they sent Jim there and let him go and he'd been so excited and if it'd beenif it had just been like, plague or famine or some shit Sam would get it, but it wasn't. "Was the starvationI mean, was it biochemical?" "No, that was legitimate, and the ion cloud did limit communications. He forged a few; Jim's. That's how I knew. He just took advantage of a bad situation. He's dead." Well shit. Jim wakes up and Mom bullies him into eating, coaxes him into it when bullying won't work and she's always been so fucking good with Jim it makes Sam mad at her all over again because she leaves them; leaves him and Frank with Jim every year and they aren't equipped to handle Jim. Not like she can. When she's not making him eat, he's doing math. Endlessly, and it makes Sam smile in relief because that's normal. Weird, but normal. 16. Jim Kirk. At first it's the eating. Every two hours, whether he wants to or not. And

he's tired, and he screams at the nurse, at Sam, at the doctor. Screams and cries and won't let anyone touch him and freaks himself out. There are sedatives, and then he's talking to a very nice woman with brown skin and clear green eyes who raises her eyebrows at him, makes him talk. Dr. Bird is relentlesshe talks about Tarsus because otherwise she wants to know about his childhood: about how he was born with survivor's guilt. About the personality tests he's taken since he was two that say he's too smart; has an obsessive personality; has a tendency towards antisocial personality disorder; has a deep need to control things; is a natural leader. It's a trade he's making in his head, and he's not sure if she knows it or not. He's not really sure if she'd ask him about the rest of it, but most of them dothe shrinks who have come and gone (quickly) over the years. He talks a lot about the other kidshe feelsresponsible. Everything was destroyed at the compound: the council and generals apparently lit fire so that the worst of the evidence would be burnednot that it matters. They started with 8,015 people, 3,923 people remain. Today he's in her office, looking out the window and listening to her talk about his survivor's guilt. He slipped up early on and told her about his equations; about Kodos finding them. "Did you do the math to determine the way to get the most people to survive," she asks, "or did you have a eugenics theory?" "No," Jim allows, but he's not going to give in on this. "Doesn't mean I didn't draw him a map." He did the math because numbers make him feel safer, even when they're saying something horrible. Kodos made them do something horrible. The skin on his hands doesn't look like paper anymore: he can't see the bone, covered now with a layer of fat and muscle. They shookwhen he came in in October? They were shaking constantly. Strain or something. They don't shake anymore, but three months is enough time, he thinks. "He took something of yours and he used it," she says softly. "He perverted something that made you feel safe. It's okay to be mad about that." She makes him sound like a fucking battered spousethe tone of her voice reminds him of those PSAs that are always running. He shifts in the chair and cracks his neck. He doesn't know if Ivana got out or not. He doesn't know if he wants her to have or not. "I didn't do enough," he snaps. "I should haveI didn't do enough." She doesn't, at least, try to tell him he's only 13. That he did all he could. He likes that about her, that even though she frames him in ways he wouldn't frame himself, she never patronizes him. He doesn't know when he started to feel better. He knows when he started to look itSam stopped acting like Jim was going to break around the end of December. Mom didn't really change, but she did start letting him watch movies around then, so maybe that was something. It took him two fucking months to get there, but he did. It's not that he's stopped waiting for the bottom to fall out it's thathe's healthy enough to handle it when it does. They let him go at the very end of January. 17. Frank Hallie. His first thought (after the initial moments of abject horror) when he finds out what's happened, is Great, now he'll be worse. He's not proud of it and he feels fucking guilty for it, buthe's not wrong. After the lamp-throwingincident Frank went back home: he came around when Sam needed him, but beyond that

The Jim who comes back looks much older, has blue eyes, and just a fuzz of blond hair. Winona shrugs when he mentions all of it and says Jim's decided to keep his hair short. The shrink, Dr. Bird, comes to the houseall the way to Iowa from San Francisco. Jim won't leave the house most days, so she comes to him. She's a nice woman. Frank almost feels bad for how much abuse Jim hurls at her. He hears Jim shout sometimes when he's home on the weekends and Bird visits (every Sunday at 2:00)breaking the quiet, steady monotone he's been using. They get set up in the study, and Frank can hear them in the kitchen, Jim yelling, "What fucking choice8 out of 500!" and "It was his fucking golden opportunity!" and once, sobbing and wrecked so far that Frank wanted to get out and away from it because even by proxy it hurt too much, "I did the math." And Winona killed the sonovabitch (they're so far past the point where that's even an issue in their marriage, and at least this one he feels like the asshole deserved it) but Frank wants tomath's Jim's thing. Math is, incomprehensibly, Jim's safest space. And the bastard tainted that. Bird sits at his kitchen table and tells him and Winona Jim has survivor's guilt, post traumatic stress disorder; an unhealthy relationship with food. That it's especially hard to treat the survivors of Tarsus IV because there is no record of what happened. That the only person who seems to know what happened and made it out is currently sitting in the living room watching Sarah Connor snarl at Miles Dyson about creating something true. Jim's snickering at John Connor's exasperation. Terminator's pretty violent, but it was the first time Jim expressed interest inanything, and Winona had nodded, so what the hell can Frank say? They're marathoningSam's in there with him, and Sam reads Jim pretty well, so if he starts to get freaked Sam will shut it off. He thinks. "It's not that we need the record on Tarsus," Dr. Bird says before she leaves, standing in the doorway and speaking in a low voice. "It's just that without it we're not on equal footing with him, and sometimes he seems to feel I'm denying or questioning the validity of his experiences. So around the dinner table or just in general if you can indicate to him in little ways that you're conscious of what happened" "How?" Frank demands. He doesn't want to bring it uphell, he'd be repressing the shit out of it. Really, he's not sure Jim isn't. "Not overtly, but if he makes a comment or alludes to it, don't pretend to misunderstand. He might want to talk about it suddenlyin the middle of the night. Might have sudden memory. Try not to be patronizingit's okay to be awkward, just be awkward verbally or tactilely" she pauses, and looks over his shoulder at the boys. "He was starved for touch that was reassuring. It'spossible that for at least four months he had little to no human contact which wasn't him being there for someone else. A huga pat on the back or a high-five, even. They're little things, but they'll mean a great deal to himto us as a species." Frank nods. All he knows is that it used to be you couldn't eat anything with Jim aroundhe'd pick off your plate if you let him. Now he doesn't. Waits until everyone's eaten, watches, and then reaches for the high-protein supplemental drink. Bypasses steak, chicken, potatoes, carrotsanything. Frank's trying to make his favoriteshell, he sent out for take out, which they do maybe once a year got fresh ice cream in January. He's got no idea what he's supposed to do. "The food thing?" he asks, because apparently Winona's not going to, and he kinda thinks this one's important. Winona's got this thing about Bird that Frank doesn't really understand: she tolerates her, listens when Bird speaks, but you'd think the woman was a goddamn mute the way Winona acts around Bird.

"He'll readjust in time," Bird tells him. "He identifies that foodthe drinks as his, because they're ordered specifically for him and none of you will drink it or have indicated that you'd like to." Of course they haven't; those things are thick and faux-chocolate. "He might also feel like if he's just drinking those he's getting what he needs nutritionally and there's more food for you. If you make an abundance then it might help him stop thinking in terms of there being a shortage. If he's up to going out, bring him to a grocery store where he can see that there isn't a shortage of food here. It's one thing for him to know it intellectually, and another to believe it." So Frank starts cooking like he'd cook for five, and there are leftovers and Sam groaning about how he can't eat anymore, he really can't. It's a waste, and he's spending more on food than he's used to and now shopping trips are a family excursion, but the first time Jim laughs at Samnot brittle, not like he's been gone over a year and been through helland finishes what's in front of him? It's worth it. Takes a month or so, but eventually Jim starts eating food at meals. Not enough, not really, so Winona doesn't take him off the drinksdoctors aren't opposed to it, and it's good for Jim to have something that he doesn't have to glance at the rest of them before eating (not that Jim knows he's doing itif Frank wasn't looking for it he wouldn't see it, he doesn't think). Jim runs. He never used to, at least not more than any other kid runs around the fields playing tag. He runs now like he's training. Exercises with weights. Come summer Frank's pretty sure he'll be swimming. It's no use keeping him in the house: doctors suggested he try that the first week. Jim'd made Sam cry with the way he did math like he was possessedthe way he kept looking out the windows franticallylike he thought someone was out there. Winona had said it was someone he thought he'd missed; someone he had to save. Said maybe she should have kept Jim on Tarsus longer so he could see everyone get evacuated and then shrugged. "What the fuck," Sam says, watching Jim run in the snow. "He's getting ready," Winona says from where she's sitting at the table, looking over her orders for shipping out. Frank wonders if she's going to stay longer or leave again. Three months at the hospital, then the two months hereshe's been inactive for a while, turning down summons and orders to stay and manage Jim. "For what? It's Riverside," Sam protests, and Frank smiles at him slightly, squeezes his shoulder. Sam's a good kid: worried about his brother, and who can blame him? "Whatever comes next," Winona replies blithely, and Frank looks at her and remembers all over again that she's got a life that's so different from his that she lives out there. That she can look at what Jim's doing and recognize it for what it is and be totally fine with it; not worried at all. Dealing with the town isa challenge. They're all fascinated, but when it's a family excursion they don't come close. Mostly because Winona's fuck-off vibe is lethal. But Jim's having a bad day because Winona's gone and Sam won't leave Jim if he doesn't have to, so Frank's doing grocery shopping among the wolves. Well, their friends, but he's feeling kind of hunted. "How is he?" Kyle Hallet asks. Kyle's kid, Aaron, was Jim's best friend, before all this. Frank looks up from the list Sam had made. Apparently they're going to be enticing Jim with chocolate this week: brownies feature heavily. "Jim? He's getting better." Kyle chuckles, which is a little strange until Frank realizes he's nervous. "Aaron's asking about when Jim'll be all right to see people," he says, and his tone is striving for casual but failing hard. "He's been home two months, Kyle."

"That's what I said to Aaron, but the kid'd never forgive me if I didn't ask. How're you doing?" Frank looks at him. "I got a kid who's pretty fucking damaged in the house." "Yeah, and that's just what you needed, huh?"

So they head to San Francisco and see Winona off, and then head to Starfleet Medical. It's a tour of a hero, and Sam says he can't take it and sits in the lobby, stubborn and angry. Full-grown adultspeople who should've been watching out for this kid, hug him and crythank him for saving them. For all he did for them. And Jim justshoulders it. Keeps walking. Smiles.

Frank smiles a littleit's not funny, it's inappropriate, but he can't help it. "He's too screwed up right now to be a handful. We'll give it six months. "Hi, sweetheart," Jim murmurs to a four-year-old girl. "Happy to be home?" Hell, it might even be a relief to have him drive one of my cars over the cliff." There are a few other kids who cluster around him tightlythe little girl is The town iswell. Doing what they always do: keeping their distance from Asseih. Pretty little thing with dark skin and big eyes. Jim but using Frank for the gossip. He thinks they're wishing that Jim had his own version of what George had been for Winona. He thinks they're Jim smiles and looks at drawings and meets family members; stands up worried that Jim's alone, and the person his George could be one of their straight and shakes hands, listens intently to status updatesand Frank kids. realizes that it's not that Jim's just being polite and glazing over, he knows their statuses, like he's been following them for all these months. Sam's visiting his grandparents after school, just to check in, but Tiberius and Anne haven't been over to the house except the one time, right when Of course he has, Frank doesn't know why he's confused. Jim'd gotten home. No one seems to notice Jim doesn't eat a damn thing while he's there Sam'd looked at Jim and said, "Hey, Jimmy, look. Pop and Grams are here."

except a spoonful of chocolate pudding, teasingly, to make Asseih eat. She looks at him, then at the pudding cup, and wraps her small fingers around it. "Mine," she says firmly, and Jim laughs, touches her cheek. "Yeah, okay," he agrees, and then moves on. There's food readily available; baskets of pastries or fruits that Jim turns down too fast when it's offered; deflects onto someone else. "Ready to go?" he asks after it's been five hours and Jim's starting to look a little weary. "No, I gotta" he hitches his thumb upwards, and Frank trails him to the other ward, where a kid Sam's age grins. "Jim." "Tom," Jim replies, and hugs Tom back when the boy wraps his arms around Jim. "How're you doing?" Tom asks seriously, pulling back only a little to look at Jim critically. "I'm home," Jim says, lips twitch. "So one up. You're a fucking asshole, though." "I don't think I could take home," Tom replies. "I meangod, no. Did you go down and see the kids? Waitwhy am I an asshole?"

Jim'd still been oddly quiet, then, and Anne had rushed over to hug him and he'd flinched, and then Winona had stepped in and sent Sam and Jim off to go do something while he'd looked at them both and then gone to find Winona. "He's so quiet" Anne had been flustered for words. "Kid survived a genocide, the fuck you expect?" Winona had asked, tilting her head and staring at them with eyebrows raised. They haven't come over since, ostensibly for Jim's own well-being, but Frank doubts it. It's not for Jim. It's for them. Jim looks like George and he's fucked up like Winona (and he loves her, he does, but he's not an idiot), and Anne and Tiberius are happier to leave things at a safe distance. * As soon as Jim gets home, Frank started getting these calls from husbands and wives and brothers and sisters from all over the damn galaxy; the loved ones of Tarsus survivors. It was always the same: "He saved my kid." "My brotherhe just keeps talking about this kid, Jim?"

"That was a really fucking embarrassing interview, Tom. Really." "I don't know if Jim's up to it, but we're at Starfleet Medical: San Francisco Frank has no idea what they're talking about, but Tom flushes slightly. could he come and see Asseih? She won't respond and one of the other boys here says that Jim used to get her to smile?" "Look, I told the truth," Tom insists. "And, I don't know, a lot of people It wasn't a thing when Jim was still in bed or not answering comms, but he's around here were trying to like, twist shit around and you know howI just. If someone was going to tell it I kinda felt like it should be one of us, and not better and it's March and now Jim looks at him curiously after Frank hangs some politician or pundit or something." up, and Frank says, awkward, "That was Starfleet Medicalapparently there are some kids still there who remember you. Said if you felt up for a visit you'd be welcome to." "I want to," Jim says, and Frank thinks, right, of course, he probably wants to be welcomed like a hero: do his ego good. "I want to go." Winona looks at Jim for a long time after he tells her, and then nods. "If you feel up to it." She's shipping outshe says for two months, apparently there's a civil war breaking out somewhere and so she's ditching him with Jim (and Sam, technically, but Sam's never felt like a burden). The three of them had a fight about it last night with Sam shouting that Winona had to stay and Jim saying that he's fucking find and Sam should stop treating him like a baby. Jim won that one: but then, Jim wins a lot these days. Jim looks at him for a while. "Yeah," he agrees, finally. "I guess." "So the kids look good? I mean" he cuts himself off, seeing something in Jim's face, and then shrugs. "I can't umI get wicked flashbacks when I go see them, so I don't do it a lot. Asseih really imprinted on you, though look." He's tugging Jim into his room and showing him a wall of child's drawings, and Frank watches the way Jim's lips twitch as he's tugged along. "All you. I feel a little bit offended, since I was the one in the depths of the woods foraging for food." "It's the blond hair, it makes me seem heroic," Jim says, and Christ he sounds like Winona there. "Yeah, that's it," Tom agrees. "You gonnatestify? I got a thingy, somewhere, but my aunt got me out of going, 'causethat's just like, nothing I want to deal with, you know?"

"Yeah, no," Jim agrees. "They haven't subpoenaed me, so I figure what the hell."

"Nolook, he's" except he doesn't know how to say it. Doesn't know how to say "I'm not George and I'm not your father and I can't pretend that any of this is cool, and maybe when we were all kids and joking about you being Tom looks at him for a long time, then nods. "Yeah. Okay. Well, there are a psychotic WE WEREN'T JOKING." She's leaving him alone the way she'd few other people here from Tarsus, and when I say 'a few' I mean the rest of want to be left alone. Frank justhe doesn't know how much more of this the ward. Come on." he can take. Frank stays at the nurses' station and watches the hours tick by, and realizes they're going to have to get a hotel room to stay the night, because Jim comes back four days after that, humming to himself. no way is he driving back to San Francisco. There's a bitemark on the back of his neck, and when he heads up the He heads down to the lobby to find Sam's already booked two rooms and is stairs and shucks off his shirt Frank can see bruises in the shape of fingers and hands all over him. eating pizza. "Jim!" he shouts up the stairs. "Jesus fuck, what the hell?" "Did someone do an interview?" Frank asks Sam, who looks at him in surprise and then says, "I just had to get out of here," Jim says, giving him a 'what're you, slow?' look. "Some kid, Tom Leighton, he did this big interview. Talked Jim up a lot. It was back when there was all that speculation about who knew what a "Jim." month or two ago. He kind of avoided the big deal stuff, thethe horror of it, Jim just snorts and slams his door behind him. you know? But he did talk up Jim a lot. Frank wants to call Winona and ask what the fuck is going on; is she letting "Want?" Sam asks, offering Frank the box of pizza while he thinks about Jim go to whore houses? When she says she has him, does she mean she that, and how it changes how much he thought everyone knew. They sit and has an apartment in San Francisco (because if she does, it's the first he's eat until the receptionist says that he's sorry, but they have to go because hearing about it and they file taxes jointly so that's shit he should know)? Or visiting hours are over. did she let him go toclubs or something and what the everloving fuck is Frank starts to go, but Sam puts a hand on his arm and goes instead. going on, here? They come back down twenty minutes later, and Jim looks exhausted, with Sam pretty much steering him along. They don't talk on the ride over, and Frank goes to bed in his crappy hotel room and the boys go to bed in theirs, and in the morning they drive back home, Jim asleep in the backseat and Sam tight and unhappy in the front. Frank puts on the radio and drives, and tries t o remember when this wasn't his life. * It goes to shit in April. The trip to the hospital was a sure-as-shit mistake: Jim's vibrating now. Restless. Sam goes to take his entrance interview at Meyer's Institute and Jim Regresses. Goes back to being that kid that Frank'd been sure he was gonna be when he was 12, before he left. Sam leaves and Jim acts like Tarsus and these last months never happened. Sam's only gone for two weeks, and Frank's trying to be supportive, or something. It sucks, he knows, that for he and Jim to get along Jim had to get wrecked, but at the same time it was kind of nice, to have kid who wasless hostile. It hadn't hurt that he was just quieter. They have a knock-out drag-down fight one night when Frank just asks him what he wants for dinner and Jim says that he doesn't know and Frank points out that he never knows but maybe he should figure it out so Frank can cook something. Jim slams out of the house, and he's gone for twenty-eight hours before Frank calls the cops and Winona. She's offdoing whatever she does, he's tired of asking, but Jim's her kid. "I've got him," she says. "What?" he demands. And after that he's out all hours of the night, he's drinking, comes home smelling like pot, and stops seeing Bird and skips his check-up, and the best part is Winona goes off-planet about a week into this horror. Sam, when he comes back, can't do anything about it. "I'm fine," Jim says flatly to Sam when Sam tries to say something. Sam got into the Institutehe'll leave at the end of June. Frank's not looking forward to it. Not evennot at all. "You're likeJim, they can help you!" Sam shouts, and Jim laughs as a horn beeps in the drive. "Yeah, but I like Tara's method of 'helping' better." He grins, and slides out of the house, leaving Frank and Sam staring after him. "Maybe it's a phase?" Sam suggests. "Maybe the last few months were the phase," Frank says wearily. "And now we're back to business as usual." Frank's right, kind of. He's turned into everything Frank always dreaded he'd be. Sam looks at Frank when Frank tries to suggest calling Winona when June rolls aroundsome fucking crisis she's got to go manage off-planet, because this is what happens when you marry a superhero. "Why?" Sam says, soft and sad. "She won'tcan't?I don't know. It is what it is. You can if you want but" he trails off and shakes his head, finishes packing and leaves. Kirks are always leaving Frank, he thinks as he takes another long pull of his beer. Maybe he was an idiot for thinking he had any of them at all. 18. Aaron Hallet. At first Aaron honestly doesn't recognize him. He's across the lobby, first off, at the lockers, but more than that it's been a year and a half. Jim's hair's shorter and his face seems to have decided to go in the direction of "gorgeous" instead of "fucking hideous".

He's just standing there, on the landing above the lobby of the school, tracking the pattern of movement, one hand so tight around the book bag's "He came to San Francisco," she says, like this isn't a big deal. "Let him be." strap that Aaron can see even from across the lobby that it's white knuckled. "Jim!" he calls, hitting Conner's shoulder. Conner turns and looks across, in "Let him be? He's fucking off his gourd!" the middle of getting shit out of his locker. Jim looks at him for a second, "Frank." and then Steven walks over to Jim and grins a little meanly as he leans

against the wall beside Jim, flicking dark hair out of his face and saying something. And Jim gives Steven all his attention, bracing a hand against the wall by Steven's head, leaning in before grinning, shaking his head and rolling his eyes and it's almost normal as Steven walks away, but it's not because, well, Steven's not one of those kids they've ever hung around with. Steven's mean and his family is psychotic (his brother wanders around at night with a meat cleaver in her hand for no apparent reason) and if Jim's a flirt then Steven's a whore. Whatever, Jim's been gone a year and everyone knows what happened on Tarsus; it was all over the news, and everyone knows about the "Nine People Who Saw The Speech And Lived" (no seriously, that's how they're writing it. Apparently some kid named Tom Leighton went to the press and gave an interview and now Jim's an infamous survivor, even though the details are really really sketchy). Aaron shrugs off his hesitation and goes over to Jim, who twitches a small smile at him. He's got blue eyes, and that's weird, because, you know, eyes don't change color. Maybe they're contacts. Still. It's kinda unnerving. "Dude, hey," Aaron says, and that's the fucking lamest opener ever, because he hasn't seen him in over a year, but at the same timeit's kind of obvious that Jim's been seeing people like Steven, but couldn't make time for his old best friend. Aaron doesn't want to be his "old" best friend. "Hey."

"Tarsus?" Steven asks. "Yeah, I know. So?" Aaron stares at him. "It's fucking Jim," Steven says in exasperation, sketching something that could be Jim (or a palm tree) in the air. "You have met him, haven't you?" Aaron's not sure what that meanshe never really gets it. Jim sits with them at lunch, he joins the track team, but It's different. He's cagey, and they don't talk like they used to. Don't hang out as much. He doesn't eat, either, and Aaron has no idea what to do to help him. They all got those lectures on 'how to spot an eating disorder' and so Aaron kinda thinks Jim might have one butJim just totally doesn't want help. Aaron kinda stops trying so hard. 19. Jim Kirk. Frank hits himhe's drunk, Jim's pissed, it was bound to happen at some pointand Jim isdone. He gets his GED, and doesn't go back to school. He just can't get out. The last time he got out things went pretty shitty and so he figuresfuck, as bad as it is here, out there it'd be worse, and it's better when Frank moves out of the house (it makes him laugh, how fast Mom divorces the asshole).

Of course, when Frank leaves it's like no one lives here, because he takes "What was that?" Aaron asks, jerking his head after Steven's back, trying for almost everything; apparently most of it was his. casual, like they can just pick up where they left off. Jim liberates 20,000 credits from Frank's accounts; the asshole hit him, and he's always been an asshole. Jim calls it compensation for having to grow "Dude is a fucker," Jim informs him, like somehow it's a revelation. up with him. The law would call it stealing, but Jim covers his tracks, and Aaron grins, and then hugs him, one armed. "Missed you, you asshole." whatever. He doesn't care. He justhe doesn't care. "Yeah," Jim says. "Well, it wasn't a picnic for me. So, homeroom, you can One day, while he's going through the boxes left in the bare house, he finds tell me if you ever got Jenna." a box full of holos of Dad and Mom and Sam in the days before Jim, and They head off, and it's like things are normal; like Jim never really left. Jim figures what the hell. That lasts a week or so? Then he's just angry in general and like he can't stop it showing. He goes on this whole big thing at their algebra teacher about how she's wrong, can't she see that that the whole fucking theory if fallacious? She makes the mistake of asking him to prove it. Turns out he can. "Did youknow Jim could do that?" Charlie asks Aaron, leaning over to whisper. "Uh, no," Aaron says flatly, because what the everloving fuck is that about? Jim's always done well without studying in math, but Jim's neverlike,what? He tests out of geometry, algebra II, trigonometry, pre-calculus, and calculus. They give him independent study. Jim just shrugs when Aaron wants to know what the fuck is going on. It gets a little weirder. He finds Jim and Steven in a music room after schoolAaron was just walking by on his way to practice, and the door was open and hello, there's Jim pressing Steven back against the desk, a hand possessive in his hair and kissing him hard, grinding their hips together. Steven's hands are under Jim's shirt, and shit, Aaron looks away fast because some things you just don't need to see. Aaron does wait around for Steven though, and grabs him when he comes out of the building. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" Aaron demands. He wants to punch Steven. Can't he see Jim's messed up? "Fucking, mostly," Steven replies, giving him a look like Aaron's the weird one. "It's Jim." "He just got back from, you know" He sits on his bed and watches them, andshit. Shit. It's been fifteen years and Jim never knew the guy and Dad would have died even if Mom hadn't been pregnant but that doesn't stop him from feeling guilty. He's also pissed off that he never got to watch these; that he never really knew anything about Dad except for the little details Sam tossed his way casually. Like they didn't meanlike they didn't mean everything. Dad is laughing, taking the footage of Mom teaching Sam how to swim, Sam glaring up at her like a drowned rat and the image shaking because Dad can't stop cracking up. There are others, ones taken of Mom and Dad's wedding, both of them in jeans and t-shirts, looking rumpled and kind of smug and like they have the world in front of them, the justice of the peace long-suffering and Grandma Anne crying. Jim feelsjittery, like he should stop watching because Mom never talks about it and Sam never talks about it and maybe it's supposed to be kept buried but he can't help it: now he's seen what everyone was like before and he just feelslost. Like there's something he was supposed to do or somewhere he was supposed to go and he didn't get there, anxious and weirdly guilty. He kept files, on Tarsus. He backed everything up on a chip and tucked it behind the chip in his PADD. All the details, and he's kept them becausebecause Kodos was dead and everyone who was going to survive did and maybe he wanted to forget, a little. He puts it in an envelop and sends the chip to the Federation Public Television, and drinks a hell of a lot as the shit storm whips into a frenzy as all the details and numbers and methods come to light, from the forging of transmissions to the hoarding of food stores.

Jim ignores calls for interviews and hosts riotous parties and tries to get to the point where he doesn't care at all. He manages to lose track of vast spans of time: he looks at the date on his PADD and realizes he lost the entire months of July and August. It's never really enough, though, and he's sixteen before he knows it. Sixteen and drunk and strung out on pills like candy and alcohol like paint stripper and designer drugs to shoot up when the average ones just won't do. He drags a lot of people down with him. Steven's the first one he almost kills, but Jim gets him to the emergency room and then calls Steven's parents. They check Steven into rehab and Jim never sees him again. He does it a few more times; once he makes a girl check herself in because she tried to hang herself from his curtains.

Jim watches Vivian watch I Love Lucy. Pretty Woman's the movie of the month. He takes a pull, and it burns as it goes down; he's got no idea what the fuck he's drinking. He has no idea how the fuck Aaron even got into his housethen again, he doesn't think he's locked the door once. Looks at Aaron and laughs, head falling back. Too loud, but what the fuck. "I don't need any of this," Jim says, and then laughs again. "Until I need more." It's a song, he thinks; a lyric to one of those twangy songs about hard times and beer. He holds up the bottle and peers through it, at the room distorted. Edward is being a dick and ignoring Vivian. "Jim, you need help" "Fuck off," he says.

Aaron does. He's not sure how to live his life, not really, but he sure as shit knows how to They all do, eventually. keep people alive. He fucks most of them out of his life, moves on to the next person; they Sure as shit doesn't know how to die. want to save him until they realize what that would mean, or realize he can't be saved. Tom goes to university to study botony, which Jim figures makes some kind of sense. He gets arrested, let out, arrested, let out, arrested, let out. Roberta is doing fine; she does the interview circuit and tries to describe Kodos' face when he gave that speech, the one that said they were all going For values of 'let out' being that he can hack the jail. He gets bored. Fucks up because he's bored, gets arrested because it breaks up the monotony, to die. She's going to write a book, apparently. busts out because what the fuck, he can't be contained. The rest of them Jim keeps track of; Kevin, Elith, Donovan, Angel, Jack and Frank has this vendetta and Jim gets arrested over and over again for stuff Asseih. They're spread across the Federation but hethem he feels most responsible for. The first ones he got out: the people he saved when he had he's done and hasn't done and some shit he did years ago, when he was like, ten. Or ninethat's the car. Frank sues him for damaged property; the no clue what he was doing, armed with a fucking hypo of all things. judge throws it out. Accuses Jim of stealing the 20kbut Jim's an excellent It's like if they're doing okay he'sokay, or something. thief, and it gets thrown out because Frank can't prove a goddamn thing. He's good at numbers; even fucked up on scripts and injects he can still Later, Jim will realize that Judge Brenner and Chief Kiablick had a real soft work the stock market, and there's Dad's insurance policy to draw from and spot for him because a lot of that shit should have put him away for at least the money Sam sends him, and so Jim starts a scholarship fund for them. a year or so, but the two of them kept on letting him crash and burn on his Makes him feel like he didn't abandon them or something. Sets it up and own. leaves it alone and yep, that's his good deed for the year. He doesn't have any idea why he's like this. Seems obvious: should be obvious. Fucked up kid; emotionally absent mother; piss-poor excuse for a father-figure, real father martyred, abandoned And then there's the genocide. Doesn't mean that sometimes he wakes up and stares at his reflection and presses his forehead against the cool mirror and sobs because he doesn'tget it. It fucking he doesn't make sense. He knows exactly why he's like this. He understands: he doesn't comprehend. In ten years, Jim Kirk will be a household name and no one will remember that he was even on Tarsus. He'll have saved thousands of lives, made first contact with hundreds of planets, and have received a truly embarrassing amount of medals of honor. Now he's lying on the bathroom floor, trying to remember if he took the blue pills or the green ones and which ones don't mix with the vodka he has clutched in his hand. "You're an alcoholic at sixteen," Aaron says, like it hasn't been a year since he's even spoken to Jim. "You need help." When Jim's eighteen, Sam gets married. He sends Jim an invitation, which Jim props up on the counter. He's not going, he's not sure he canhe's pissed at Sam for getting his life together and he's justhe doesn't want to go. Too much fucking effort to go play nice with people he doesn't actually care about. And Sam left, so. Whatever. Sam's marrying Aurelan Rose Kensington, and a month before the wedding Jim wakes up with a massive hangover and The Ultimate HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy beside his head. He looks around; he must have passed out in the bar again, because he's in the back room. Still, it's not like people just randomly leave him books. Well, there was that one time someone left him a pamphlet, but that doesn't really count as the same thing. He takes the book with him as he heads back home, head throbbing. He needs a hypo, Jesus Christ. He flips through the book when he gets home and finds a hand-written note in the back: To Jim, with love, Aurie. Sam's number is programmed into Jim's comm. SoSam, and possibly Aurie, dropped by last night when Jim was passed out. Excellent. Jim drinks his beer and sits down on the bare floor of the living room and reads the book, cover to cover, curious.

He sends Sam a message when he's done, because this shit's fucking hilarious:

there's an infinite number of monkeys outside who want to talk to us about this script for Hamlet they've worked out.
He has a bad moment a month after Sam's wedding where he wakes up and stares at the math he'd been working on and realized that none of it made sense to him. He gets scared and pissed off and throws everyone out of his house because thatthe math, that's supposed to be the one thing; the stable thing. Not the thing that he just That can't be the thing he loses. He can either sober up or slit his wrists, and Jim is constitutionally incapable of giving anyone the vindication of him living up to expectation: flaming the fuck out. He throws all the hypos and pills out; cleans the house out of all of it and lays on the floor of his bedroom and detoxes. It's the worst five days of his goddamn life. On the second day he comms her. "Mom." She comes and there are bruises around her face but she sits with him, coaxes him through it.

Because he's a masochist, and then gets drunk. Really drunk. And he can hear it in his dreams, that shriek of metal right before the connection died and he just He loses a few months, there, before he can even crawl out of that hole, but he sticks to alcohol, this time, and maybe that means he's growing up or something. It ocurrs to him that he hasn't checked up on the Tarsus survivors in a whilenot all of them, he can't keep track of all of them (lies, he does, but he's not invested in them like he is in the first eight he rescued). Donovan is seventeen and in rehab; got addicted to his depression meds. Jack just enlisted in Starfleet after graduating high school, and Roberta is enrolled in school for early childhood education. Tom's done with his studies and is living on Planet Q, and is engaged to Martha Allen. Kevin lives with his grandmother and sees a shrink weekly, but he's doing all right, gets good grades. Elith is seventeen and graduated; she's heading for the Kennedy School of Government. Good for her, maybe she'll be president one day. Angel he has to dig for, only because her family moved and she changed her name to Francesca, which he can't blame her for. No one wants Tarsus to be the thing that defines them. She's fine: getting good grades, happy. Asseih is ten and fine, but she was only three when it all went down. Her he'd like to visit sometime; he'd like to see hersee what someone who doesn't carry this with them looks like.

He rips his fingernails go down to bloody stumps when he tries to scratch It's like the math; facts are important. It doesn't change anything, not really, motherfucking theories into the walls; when he'ssober, clean, whatever, but he feels better for knowing it. he looks around the house and can't remember doing it. Can't remember Better for knowing that they'reokay. Alive. moving from room to room and using expanses of walls as paper; can't remember why the fuck he didn't just pick up the PADD and use that, unless Mom hid the PADDs from him. He's twenty one, and Uhura is fine. The way she laughsthat's why he Most of it doesn't make sense; the ends of theorems or proofs, stopping and wants her. starting and running together frantically. The fight, well. Jim's always had a fucking big mouth. Some of it does make sense; the stuff he did later. He writes a paper on the Typical Thursday, is what he's saying, and fine, he got beat up and he theories and publishes it under a false name; he's kind of incredulous that struck out but now this guy wants to talk and Jim's so not in the mood for he can do that. this shit. Especially not from Christopher fucking Pike, who Jim's been trying Mom leaves a month after he comes clean, muttering about some bullshit in kinda hard not to hate for writing that damn thing. the Illyri system. "I couldn't believe it when the bartender told me who you were." He's not completely sober: he's still drinking. But he does pick up some "Yeah, and who am I, Captain Pike?" Fuck, his nose is like, crusting up with hours at the Shipyard Bar, just to have something to do. He takes the bike blood. He can't decide if the napkins wedged are really doing anything at after his shift is over and go see the Enterprise get finished up. She's the this point, but whatever. newest flagship built in the George Kirk Memorial Shipyard, and Jim's living "Your father's son." under her shadow. There's got to be significance there somewhere, he should ask Sam's wifeshe's a lit professor. Not that Jim's met herthey're on a planet called Miranda and Jim knows he's gotta be the one to make that first move but he hacked her records; had to make sure she was good enough for Sam, and Sam likes to send Jim little random notes throughout his day. Jim doesn't respond, but he likes getting them. Feeling like maybe he's part of Sam's life or something. Not a surprise, not really, but stillmost people try to be subtle about slipping good old Dad into the conversation. Not Pike. "Can I get another one?" Jim lifts his glass; he's so not drunk enough for this conversation. "For my dissertation I was assigned to the USS Kelvin," Pike says, like he's imparting fucking wisdom hereshit Jim doesn't know. "Something I admired about your dad: he didn't believe in no-win scenarios." "Sure learned his lesson." He gets curious when he's twenty and reads Christopher Pike's dissertation on the USS Kelvin's final hours. He listens to the recordings "Sweetheart can you hear me?" "I can hear you." "I love you so much. I love you" "Well, that depends on how you define winning, you're here, aren't you?" "Thanks," Jim says when his glass is topped up, and then gives Pike a look. Clearly he's here. In all his glory. Bloody, drunk, but alive. That last one is pretty fucking impressive, actually. He thinks Cupcake gave him tinnitus. Or one of his buddies. How many of them were there?

"You know that instinct, to leap without looking, that was his instinct too, and For Thessaliad. in my opinion something Starfleet's lost." Pike sounds like a cop or a social I wrote this, ages ago, for thessaliad for sweet-charity. She was gracious worker. enough to let me hold onto it until I was ready to post, because it declares Maybe a little bit like Dr. Bird, and wow, Jim hasn't thought about her Illogical over. Which is kind of sad for me, in a melancholy kind of way. In in years. any event, I hope you all like it, and thank you for encouraging, pestering, and being amazing. I'm sorry I didn't get to some of the POVs I thought I "Why are you talking to me, man?" would- let's face it, hardly anything I ever say I'm going to write turns out "Cause I looked up your file while you were drooling on the floor. Your 100% the way I conceive of it. aptitude tests are off the charts, so what is it? You like being the only Except the porn. That's pretty straightforward. genius-level repeat offender in the Midwest?" Work Text: "Maybe I love it." "Look, so your dad dies, you can settle for a less-than-ordinary life. Or do you feel like you were meant for something better? Something special?" Jim's kind of tempted to check his arms. Maybe he's hallucinating; maybe he's got a concussion. No one in real life thinks this kind of corny shit works. Of course, he was pretty sure no one in real life was this corny, but. "Enlist in Starfleet." "Enlist" Jim's laughing before he can stop itnot that he tries all that hard. "You must be way down on your recruiting quota for the month." "If you're half the man your father was, Jim, Starfleet could use you. You could be an officer in four years; you can have your own ship in eight. You understand what the Federation is, don't you? It's important. It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada" "We done?" Jim asks, because Pike sure likes to hear himself talk. "I'm done." He actuallypays for Jim's drink. That's kind of adorable, in a patronizing kind of way. Is he bribing Jim with a cheap drink, is that what this is? "Riverside Shipyard. Shuttle for new recruits leaves tomorrow, 0800." Jim waves him off with drink in hand, and Pike pauses, hesitates like Jim's not playing along with his script and now he's going to throw in a hail mary pass to try to catch him or something. Oh, great. "Your father was captain of a starship for 12 minutes. He saved 800 lives including your mother's. And yours. I dare you to do better." Jim looks at him, holds his gaze, and then laughs. Laughs and laughs until he can't breathe for laughing, and Pike walks out like he thinks he still has a chance, like he did something here. "Kid, you're an asshole," Rexhame, the closing bartender, comments. "You crashing in the back or gonna try to head home?" "Yeah. Least I'm not an idiot," Jim replies, and then stands up with a wince. "I'll head home, I'm fine to drive." He's really not, but makes it there in one piece, drags himself upstairs and falls into bed with a grunt of pain because jesus fuck, he thinks some of his ribs are cracked. Fucking Pike. Fucking Starfleet. Jim's gotta get out; he's clean enough to get that, at least. He's got to get out but he's not going to go up into fucking Starfleet so he can die. He laughs a little and lays down. In the morning he locks up the house, hops on the bike and rides the nine hours to San Francisco. Figures it's as good a place as any to start over. Certain Summary: Spock will only ever be certain of one thing Notes: It is to satisfy his emotional need to rebel. It is to prove that if they do not desire his presence, he is not going to cower and beg for acceptance when it has been made abundantly clear that they would have preferred his parents never succeed in conceiving him. He goes to a planet he knew only vaguely from stories his mother told of a city drenched with rain. A planet he was never taken to visit, because his parents had committed to raising him as a Vulcan; to honoring a choice that perhaps he was too young to ever have made. What child, at age 4, should be asked the direction of their life and taken seriously when that choice is made? Spock goes to a city that is loud and transient and diverse, where the sky above is blue and the ground is green and the temperature is cooler and fluctuates far more wildly than on Vulcan, and he is there, uncertain of his footing but certain, at least, of that. He enrolls at Starfleet and tests out of many classes. They have no idea what to do with him. He is far beyond their cirriculum; he is far beyond them. Vulcans at the Academy are too rare, and Vulcans from his way of life upon Vulcansheltered, committed entirely to Vulcan and not expatriotsare even rarer. He was first in his year on Vulcan; his academic record from his youth is flawless. He is the strongest touch-telepath in generations (and that, for Terrans especially, seems difficult to navigate). If Vulcan had princes, he would be one of them. Black Prince, perhaps, but irrefutably a child of two worlds who belongs to neither. His academic advisor is Captain Christopher Pike, a man who seems reluctantly conscripted into teaching children while his ship is finalized. "Teach," Pike advises when Spock finishes his academic curriculum and is looking into an uncertain future; cultivating multiple options is logical, but on Earth and in Starfleet his options are all too broad, and he is uncertain of which is best. "Maybe you'll find it." "To what do you refer?" Spock inquires, puzzled and suspecting he has missed a verbal cue. "Whatever it is you're looking for," Pike replies cryptically, and then turns in obvious dismissal to take a communication from the 2IC on the Jimmy Carter, Number One. Spock finds that Terran conversation is convoluted. It is not the lying which is difficultlies are easy to spot when one has only heard the truth. It is the way that they do not say what they mean, or that they think in abstract metaphor. Spock has a purpose: he is in Starfleet. To suggest that he is waiting for an ephemeral entity or event is something only a Terran would do. He submits himself for instruction, and he teaches the advanced physics courses, and codes the Kobayashi Maru. Pike suggests that Spock's disgust with the hierarchy of Starfleet is being channeled into Spock's work on the test. This is perhaps true: but it is also true that he wants those who endeavor to become captains to face the worst things: if Spock is going to

join someone, someday, as a captain, he wants to see what he, she or ze is capable of doing under the worst Spock can come up with. He dines with his parents at the embassy when they are on the planet. Walks with his mother through the streets of San Francisco and startles himself at his familiarity with a city he has not yet come to think of as "home". She laughs and takes him to places she remembers from her youth, speaking wistfully of her time with her friend Maggie, and it is one thing to have heard these stories, but another to hear them and know their context. "They had a rally," Mother confides, with a smile. "I think they thought I was somehow being coerced into marrying him. Things were...well. We didn't choose an easy path, that's true, but I like to think things worked out fine even if "fine" has variable definitions," she teases, and Spock looks down at her and feels a surge of affection. He has only ever been helplessly adoring of his mother, who taught through example how to endure uncertainty and the disdain and discomfort of multitudes. He is not...content. "Happy" is too emotional a term for him to be entirely comfortable using, but he is not content. He is restless, and vexed by the apathy and idiocy of his students. Leaving the equations on the board satisfies an emotional need to throw into apathetic students' faces their own inadequacies. Pike deals with his frustrations by baiting Admirals and harassing his wife and being a force of nature on Starfleet's campus. Spock deals with his by taunting students. They are neither of them unaware that these are coping mechanisms. The first time he walks into his classroom and finds the problem solved, he stops and stands, completely still, eyes tracing over and over the math because it is correct, but even he has to stretch to realize exactly how it's been solved. He watches his students carefully, looking for a twitch of pride or a smirk or even...it is not a Vulcan, he knows, nor is it a Tellarite. Vulcans would not hide competence, and in their own way neither would Tellarites; boasting is a sport among that race. He puts up another problem next to it. It is solved within a week. And then another. He checks security feeds, and on the fourth he starts spending inordinate amounts of time in his classroom, grading papers there instead of at home or in his office.

inconsequential. Would you like a recommendation to get into the Academy?" The human looks prepared to laugh, and shoves his hands into his pockets, shifting his weight. A bit of skin shows between his shirt and the waistband of his jeans. "No." "That is illogical, please explain." The human takes a hand out of his pocket to run over his face and scratch through his hair. "It's just math. Doesn't mean I want to go upthere." Spock follows the wave of his hand out the window, towards the stars beyond. The interesting thing about Terrans is that they lie without realizing it, because they so frequently lie to themselves. "I won't say no to a drink," the man offers, and it is unrelated, but Terrans are strange and Spock is fascinated, so he nods. "I will get my coat," he says. They walk, because it is nice out, and then Spock says, "I apologize, I did not get your name." "Jim. Jim Kirk," Kirk says, and Spock knows that name. Jim Kirk was a survivor of the Tarsus IV Genocide and much lauded by other survivors, though he had only been thirteen at the time. He had returned to Earth and vanished from the public eye. He is the heir to George Kirk's legacy (which Spock finds specious; the man did a great deed, but it is perhaps less incredible than everyone has made it seem. If either of the parents is going to have a legacy, certainly it will be Winona Kirk). "I am Spock, son of Sarek," Spock says, and then touches Kirk's arm to encourage him to turn into the restaurant. It is by the embassy, and can be reasonably counted on to prepare Vulcan cuisine. He has not yet eaten, and it is Tuesday. On Tuesdays he finds he prefers home cooking. Kirk slouches and splays his legs with a grin that invites Spock in on the humor of the situation. Spock takes a moment to survey why there should be humor as he folds his napkin across his lap: Kirk does not fit, and the other patrons are uncomfortable. Kirk's clothes and attitude compound the fact that they are a Vulcan interspecial couple, and he is the son of a Vulcan and a Human, which a fair percentage of the clientele in the room know. It warrants, he supposes, attention. Even Vulcans are glancing over: they have never known what to make of him, and he imagines that this causes them discomfort. Vulcans are purests. "Yeah," Kirk is saying to the waiter. "I'll get the bacon burger and fries. A lot of fries. With saltand not like, you know. Skins on fries, mostly baked potatoes just crisped a little. I want honest-to-god fries that have been boiled in a vat of fat and are crispy and gold. Can I get that?" he asks Spock, who lifts an eyebrow at him.

It is warm April when he comes into the room and finds a human male sits on the desk in front of the problem. He chews on his lower lip as he works through it mentally. He is wearing slouching jeans and a leather jacket, and Spock does not recognize his face from campus, and Spock believes that "I believe they can accomodate that request," he says, and realizes that he even he would remember that face. Some people have features aesthetically pleasing to all races: this male has one. He also carries himself is, in fact, laughing with Jim Kirk. It is most unexpected. as though he is never uncertain of his welcome: such people are rare. The waiter huffs but is appeased when Spock orders traditional dishes which will tax their very expensive chef. He solves it in thirty minutes, and Spock works out the how because it's always so different, how he gets to the answer, before he makes himself "So, you got a last name, Commander Spock?" Kirk is eyeing the lemon in known. his water goblet distastefully, and after he fishes it out with his fork Spock "You are not a cadet, nor a member of Starfleet." gestures for him to put it in Spock's glass. He has no irrational aversion to citrus.

"No," the man agrees, and his eyes are very blue, and he seems ready to run, though there is nothing tense in his posture, nor any sense of fear in his "You are neither a pupil nor a subordinate, it is appropriate that you refer to me by my given name. As to a surnameyou could not pronounce it." face. "Aw, c'mon. I've got a talented tongue." "And yet you have solved four of my problems." And have failed to claim credit for any of them, he does not add. "I promised an immediate A and a "I am sure you can supply references to that effect," Spock agrees mildly. recommendation and commendation for the student who first solved the "However, it will not be necessary." problem here. An A would mean nothing to you, a commendation, given that Kirk grins at him over his glass of water. He does not seem to mind Spock you are not in fact a member of Starfleet, would be superfluous and watching him, and so Spock does not make a conscious effort to stop.

"Are you a consultant?" Spock asks as Kirk devours his burger. "No. I'm a bartender," Kirk replies, and leans his chair onto its back two legs. Spock does not understandhe comprehends, but does not understand. "There is a 67.8% chance you will overbalance," he informs Kirk. "And there is an 89.4% chance that you will give the maitre'd a headache from stress." "Good for him," Kirk snorts, but lowers the chair. "Gets the blood flowing." He is content to let Spock pay the bill, and Spock is content to pay it.

Spock is attempting to explain Kirrria's Theory to Chekov, who is a bright boy, but very young, and Nyota Uhura is presumably waiting to discuss her latest assignment in her Vulcan 407 class. Kirk exhales and swings his feet; Spock looks pointedly towards his board, where there is another problem up for Kirk. Kirk rolls his eyes at Spock, but settles in. Chekov leaves once he understands the basics of the theory, and Spock stands behind Kirk and watches. Kirk makes strange leaps; he intuits and has internalized theories to the point where he can accurately and reliably manipulate them.

"So," Kirk says, pushing his hands into his pockets as they stand outside the restaurant. "I gotta say, that was probably the worst burger I have ever had." "You solve it in a singularly unique way," Spock observes. He presses a datafile into Kirk's hand before collecting his coat. "Your mind is even more "I am sorry you found it less than satisfactory." Human than most of my students'." It is not precisely what Spock means, but he does not know how to phrase it another way. "Don't worry about it. I'll make you make it up to me." He hails a taxi and grins, moving in as though he intends Spock to join him. If Spock were uncharitable, he would suspect this is a ploy to make Spock pay the fare. "Coming from you, that's a compliment," Kirk informs him cheerfully. It turns out that it is, and that Kirk is not even slightly ashamed of it. The eatery is loud and thrumming with people who shout, and Kirk "Jim. JimJames Tiberius Kirk," Pike says, staring at him when Spock nods effortlessly shouts over most of them. Spock is observing that he is most in agreement. "He'swhat the hell is he doing in San Francisco? Last time I comfortable in chaos. saw him he was in a bar in Riverside, Iowa, drunk out of his mind." The more Spock observes, the more he becomes convinced that Kirk is The tone in which he says "Riverside, Iowa" implies that it is an undesirable likely the mathematical mind of their age: he cannot help it but do it. He location. breathes it, does it without thought. And Spock, despite what he might have expected, does not have to dumb down his conversation and can have a "Tending bars, from what I am able to surmise." theoretical discussion about the properties of cold-burning stars without Pike stares at him. "I justhow did you even meet him?" once having to pause and assess whether or not Kirk has managed to comprehend what Spock has said. "He solved the problems I leave on my board." It has been three years since Spock has been around someone he has been able to speak to in that way; perhaps longer. It is therefore a source of Spock just looks at him. Pike stares back. "Look, it's justthere's some stuff friction between them that Jim is so adamantly dismissive of his gifts, and is youyou should look at" he shakes his head, frustrated. "I'm not saying content to wallow. He has no drive to rise above his experienceshe has you have to, I'm just saying, after I got back from seeing him last year I been taught by them that being subtly intelligent and keeping it as a hidden looked up the kid's record and...he's been through a lot." weapon to be pulled out only when things have reached a breaking point. It "Your tone suggests that you are warning me not to expect too much or is logical, but a strange misconception on Jim's part that Spock does not pressure him to do something, which I find curious as I am merely spending understand. time with him" Spock says, not quite understanding what Pike is attempting "I do not understand why you would not want others to know," Spock to convey. He suspects this is because Pike does not understand what he is persists in a bar on Divisadero. attempting to convey. "Jim Kirk." He does look up Kirk's record. He watches the interview a frail seventeenyear-old Tom Leighton gave seven years ago, firmly and determinedly defending Jim Kirk from the insinuations of the interviewer. He reacquaints himself with the story of George Kirk, and and finds the curious record of Winona Kirk, who seems to be an intelligence officer whose actual title Spock cannot determine. She is currently listed as an active engineer in Starfleet, rank: Lieutenant. It is strange she has not been promoted since 2233. Spock has lived his entire life as a public figure. The details of his conception are public domain, and he remains a subject of controversy and interest in some circles. Spock cannot imagine surviving Tarsus IV as a Terran child of thirteen. In the first week that Spock knows Kirk, they see each other five times. Spock feels that this is a lothe just cannot determine whether his own tendencies towards solitude bias his experience. Kirk shows up after Spock is done teaching, promising to take him to get "actual American food that doesn't taste like shit." "This is ridiculous," the customer informs Jim. "No way did we drink that much." "Yeah, Peaches, you did," Kirk replies, matching the customer's tone. Kirk a no problem starting fights; that Spock is intimately aware of. He hopes today he will abstain from doing so; they are going to see an art exhibit at the "What's the point?" Kirk asks, biting on a straw (Kirk has what Spock's students call an 'oral fixation'he is always touching his mouth or putting something in it or licking his lips. It is wildly distracting). He hands the customer a bill, and then hands Spock another glass of water. "It is illogical to hide a skill set." Kirk shrugs and licks his lips. "I'm not really hiding it. I'm just not, you know, using it for the greater good."

Museum of Modern Art, and one of the artists is Roberta al-Hiradi, a Tarsus IV survivor. "Yes, I can see how this is preferable," Spock agrees mildly.

earlier insistance that he does not want to be "up there" was a blatant lie, and Spock is, for lack of better phrasing, fed up.

In the end, the judge looks at Spock and Pike and says, "Why isn't he...I "Vulcan pig, dunno why we even put up with you," Peaches' friend says. It is mean, does he like living like this?" a fascinating truth that Vulcan is the recipient of the majority of Terran "I do not know," Spock replies over the sound of Pike's snort. "I am xenophobia. He suspects it is due to the fact that Vulcan has not assimilated attempting to rectify the situation." or been affected as strongly by the blending of cultures within the "Godspeed," the judge mutters, and Jim is now Spock's responsibility. Federation. McCoy insists he will spend the night with Jim, and so Spock begins getting "Because if you had attempted to conquer Vulcan we would have destroyed Jim's curriculum in order. you," Spock replies. The man takes a swing at him: he is inebriated, and Jim stares at him when he opens the door to his apartment and finds Spock Spock has no time to reason with him. He administers the pinch and then on the other side. "I shouldI should be seriously pissed at you. You had again to both men, and they go down. Spock takes out his wallet and hands no fucking right to" Kirk a card. Kirk staring at the two men on the ground, his hands hovering "The alternative is clear: accept the penalties of the law without any around his eyes protection," Spock says. "Or do the logical thing and live up to your "Jim," Spock urges patiently, holding out the money. Jim takes it, still staring potential." at the collapsed forms. Jim chews his thumbnail and Spock reaches out and removes it from his "Spock, tell me you didn't kill them," he says, raising his eyes to Spock's in mouth. "I" he begins, and then shakes his head, stepping inside. Spock abject horror. follows and shuts the door behind him, turning curiously. "Humans are a melodramatic race; I merely sedated them." "Yes?" Jim looks at the men on the floor, then at Spock, then back again. "You have got to teach me that," he informs Spock. "The last paper I published I did under a stupid assumed name and" "Rhett O'Hara, I know," Spock agrees. He had read that paper: it is required reading for Thurgood's Advanced Astrophysics and Mathematics (PHYS 731). He had recognized the equations Jim was scrawling on bar napkins, and Jim had carelessly told him it was something he'd been working on. "I wait what?" "You caused a bit of controversy." "I haven't done school anything since I was 14, okay? And like" he shakes his head, and Spock abruptly realizes that this tense, angry appearance is Jim Kirk dealing with fear.

Spock does, after the exhibit. The girl, Roberta al-Hiradi, takes one look at Jim and then will not let him out of her sight for the night. She talks to him about everything, about her boyfriend, about her family, and every so often she stops and looks at Jim and then says, "You checked up on me?!" Jim just widens his eyes innocently and she forgives him, smiling as though pleased to have merited the attention. She basks in it, her small hand firmly in Jim's throughout the night, and when it is time for them to depart she clings to him, and then wipes her face, telling him to keep in touch, you asshole.

"I do not believe you capable of being anything other than exceptional when you have decided to do something," Spock informs him. "It is up to you to Jim kisses her forehead and laughs, but the smile drops from his face as soon as they step out onto the street. Spock waits. With Jim, there will be no decide to do this." moving him until he is entirely ready to speak. Jim does. "Tarsus was a clusterfuck," Jim says as they're walking aimlessly down His first semester Spock and Pike handle incredulous, "Wait, Winona's kid?" streets. "It was just..." he exhales, rubs a hand through his hair. "But did you questions (with several "Wait, George's kid?"s thrown in for good measure), see how awesome that was? She's doing so fucking well for herself." and Pike just laughs and says, "Winona's kind of...terrifying. And Jim's...distressingly more Winona than he is George." Spock does not mention the old scars on her wrists, because he doubts very highly that Jim missed it. His ethics professor comes to Spock complaining about Jim disrupting the class. "I read that datafile you gave me," Jim says, and looks at him. "You are teaching Jim Kirk about genocide?" Spock asks, once he has had "Indeed." the full story from Yanz. "You are attempting to educate him on Tarsus IV?" Jim allows the silence to linger, then shrugs. "It was interesting." "It's the course material!" Spock plies him with them, after that. Inserts tests and reads the copious notes Jim leaves in the margins. He spars with Jim and does not touch him "I understand that, Commander. I would point out, however, that the Academy encourages students to participate in open dialogue with the too long, does not cling to the lines of him, is not irrationally envious of instructors, and that Jim Kirk is a survivor of the genocide on Tarsus IV, and Hikaru Sulu, who has been coerced into being Jim's running partner. He is as such is likely to react poorly to being taught about it, however valid your not envious of anything else which draws upon Jim's time. That would be insights may be." illogical. "I can't just excuse him from the course." It is such a simple opening that at first, when Spock is looking bemusedly at his comm and wondering why he is Jim's emergency contact, it does not occur to him. But then it does, and he calls everyone, calls in favors. Jim is stagnant and plateauing, and Spock is not an idiot. Jim knows everything about Starfleet the way only a Starfleet brat can; he watches what is going on, he argues with Pike and Number One on policy. Jim's "On the contrary, it is within your power to do so. You could offer him an alternate project or require him to do a research topic. Your refusal to do so and your insistance on speaking to me, instead of Cadet Kirk, implies that you believe he has insight to offer and are hoping to gain them." "What did you say to Yanz?" Jim demands that Thursday, when Spock has his hand clenched around Jim's throat and Jim pinned to the wall, Jim's body fitting against his as though it was designed to fit with his.

"Nothing that was not true. I assume you have a research paper." "Twenty-nine pages," Jim agrees, voice barely coming out, and pressed this close, Jim's skin a press against Spock's... It is inappropriate. Jim is now his student and his charge, and he is not going to take advantage. It would be entirely inappropriate. In Jim's first semester he gets perfect marks, and arrives at the door of Spock's office, takes him out to dinner and talks about Archer's compliment, about getting a ship and working with Pike or Number One, and doesn't eat a bite. Spock has been monitoring this: when Jim is excited or not going out with the explicit intent of eating, he does not consume food. Old habits, Spock knows. He is aware of it, and so now he simply orders gravy fries and leaves them in front of Jim. Spock will not eat them as a vegetarian, and Jim is very aware of it. It works, and Jim eats, gesturing with the fries, leaning in towards Spock with a smile so wide it seems impossible, and his energy is infectious. "Can I stay at yours?" Jim asks as they're leaving. "Bones and Christine are having their illicit unspeakable 'study session' and I was an idiot for letting him live with me." Spock had genuinely thought to give him the guest room. Had genuinely not expected to be pressed against the wall beside his bedroom door, Jim's teeth and hands and his body spread under Spock's warm and welcoming, and Spock is falling, falling, the footing he thought he had is gone and he is left clinging to Jim. He does not mind. It changes everything, and it changes nothing. They are as they have been for over two years now, and perhaps that is indicative of the type of relationship they have always hadthat it was always going to end here, at this point. Father stays silent on the subject, and Mother worries. She wants to meet Jim, and always asks after him whenever Spock calls. "Oh, sweetheart," she laughs, when he inquires if she thought they were romantically involved, "I thought you would be." Nyota Uhura wants to know why it took so long, a question to which Spock has no answer other than he has no idea how to navigate Terran romantic overtures. "Oh god," Pike says when Jim opens the door to Spock's apartment in only jeans, on the comm with someone informing them that they are required to take his shift tonight, as he has to study. Spock is working on pressuring him to withdrawing from bartending altogether, but it is a losing battle. "Captain Pike." "I want to know what about him makes you lose your mind," Pike informs him, and then hastily corrects himself, "No, no I don'tit's an expression. Look, the thing is, this is dangerous. Not because they'll give a shit after he's graduated, after he's graduated no one really cares and, well, you're from your parents and his mother used to walk around big as a whale lacing people's nose-candy with powdered bleach, so." Spock raises his eyebrows and drinks his tea. He suspects this has a point, but Pike is often sidetracked when it comes to the Kirks. "Right, the point is, you already browbeat a hell of a lot of people over him, and he's going to need you to bail him out even more if he keeps like he's going with the Kobayashi Maru because you know he's going to organize a march or something in protest of it being unwinnable.

"I'm just saying, someone pointing out that you're...emotionally compromised? Not really the ace in the hole we need here." "Jim is perfectly capable of defending himself," Spock says. "Yeah, well." "And I find it difficult to imagine in this scenario you will be standing by offering no assistance." Pike glares at him. "Look. What I'm saying is that you're in deep, and people in deep in this job burn out fast." "You" "I'm dirtside while she's in the air. Sometimes you just threaten to die of loneliness," Pike says flatly. "Just" "You are concerned for him," Spock realizes. "He's Jim Kirk," Pike says, and Spock nods. It's a phrase many use, and Spock understands the inclination to do so. Jim is difficultimpossibleto describe. Spock thinks this is because of the things he guards so closely to his chest; things that one must know, such as Tarsus, the fact that Jim is the greatest mathematical mind of the age but will never do anything with that because it is not where he is most joyful. Spock is very good at what he does. He executes his duties as professor, advisor and Commander perfectly. He has an unparalleled ear for music and an unparalleled eye for art: his is the product of his upbringing. His emotional control has yet to be broken once since he has reached adulthood. Given the circumstances he finds himself in on a monthly basis he would suggest that this is no small feat. He is skilled at hand-to-hand combat. He can hack a system and he can shoot a target at 600 yards, given proper weaponry and conditions. One day he will be a member of an endangered species, and it will seem that there are times when every mission would remind him of that. When a Vulcan crewmember dies it will be more devastating because to his race it must be more devastating than to any other race. Each life is infinitely more precious. And there will be days when he thinks that he has lost so much of who he was when he refused the Vulcan Science Academy. He will be as angry, but for different reasons. He will have blood on his hands and have lost a dear mother. He will have bonded with a Terran male, and so much of him will be irrevocably tangled in with Jim. Admiral Pike has said that Jim was the thing Spock was seeking before he knew he was looking. It is perhaps true, but would suggest one subscribed to a philosophy of predestination. Which, raised as a Vulcan, Spock cannot. However, the time will come when he has an older counterpart from an alternate reality walking around masquerading as his father's cousin, and Jim has a head full of memories of a life they never led, and a galaxy which seems by the day more and more determined to throw its worst at them, and Spock will be uncertain of everything. But he will be certain of Jim. And that will be more than enough.