[Waking into Memories]
Oct. 17th, 2009 03:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kirktastic(OOC: The song I was listening to while typing this.)
When they had returned to Earth, it was to madness. News had traveled far faster then they ever could have on impulse power. Earth and all of its people were grieving the loss of Vulcan, the ships that had been destroyed by the Narada, and the thousands of people that had been on those ships by the time they had finally gotten back with a formal escort. Kirk had immediately banned anyone from transporting up to the ship - only off until he gave the word. It hadn't lasted terribly long, they had told him to report immediately after all, but he didn't want to leave until he was sure everyone else was off. He had walked his empty ship until he had found Bones, tucked away in transport room one. Together, they had gone down to the space station.
It had been madness there. Reporters in thousands, security in red trying to hold them back, trying to get information. Kirk had said nothing, just held his head high and walked to the relay transporter down to Earth where the same thing occurred when he took his first breath of non-recycled air. Still he said nothing until he got into the large room with the Board.
It had been silence there. Kirk had stood for five hours and forty six minutes, his body aching and starving, until he had wanted to scream. Even after time in sickbay, he was still sore all over, but bruising would take time to heal. Five hours, forty six minutes of being drilled in every moment of what had occurred.
How had he gotten on the ship? What happened on Delta Vega? (There, he lied. Lied a lot. Amazingly, he had gotten Scotty to agree to lie with him. Kept their stories simple - Scotty had been tracking the sudden something in the atmosphere after sensing the Enterprise's passing, had managed to find him, had perfected his transwarp theory while working on the base.) What happened on the Narada? Tell them everything about Nero and his crew and the ship. How had he known about the lightning storm in space? Why hadn't they gotten information to the other ships faster?
Question after question after question. Kirk told them every bit of truth that he could, lying only when it came to the elder Spock he had met. Finally, finally, they had released him, telling him that they would speak to his crew one by one. Kirk had already known that, but he thought it was their not-so-subtle way of saying 'If you're lying, we'll know'.
He didn't care. He wanted to vanish.
So he did. For five days, though keeping his comm open in case the Board did try to contact him, James T. Kirk vanished. He had slipped out of the building through a small service entrance to avoid the reporters, got back to his dorm, packed up some things, got his cycle, and left. In a leather jacket and jeans, no one knew who he was. When someone recognized him in a bar deep in south... somewhere... he had laughed and said with a shake of his head that he wouldn't be caught dead in Starfleet. They had believed him because he was a charasmatic bastard and because why would someone who had become a star over night be in some shitty bar?
Kirk looked up to the sky that night, laying out on the grass in a big empty field in the middle of nowhere, staring silently at where as a child he had learned Vulcan sat. It was still there, a beautiful crimson dot in the sky that was all a lie. He knew it would take years (but how many?) for the light to stop reaching Earth, for it to vanish from the sky forever.
It was there, with no one at all around for miles, that he could let himself grieve.
No one except one damn old Vulcan knew what he knew. He had been there, lived it himself, the end of Romulus, the black hole, the destruction of Vulcan from two completely different view points. He had, standing there with Sulu with every part of them throbbing in pain, watched the planet collapse on itself. He had, standing on the ice in the bitter cold, watched the sky turn to darkness in his mind.
He closed his eyes on all that remained of Vulcan and let the tears fall, swishing his mouth out with moonshine that burned bitterly on the back of his throat. He carried, and would always carry, that deep seated guilt that he had failed, and that his world had vanished because of those actions. Emotional transference Spock had called it.
Guess that was supposed to explain all the other memories that had come with that damn mind-meld, but it really didn't.
He had come back only when the Board told him too, and it was only for more questioning. He ignored all other attempts to each him for almost another week.
When his mind had finally agreed to deal with people, he had started where few would have - the reporters. He sat down and did a long but casual with the source that offered him the most amount of money that would agree to his terms - he wasn't stupid. We do this nice and casual, just me, the person you chose to speak, and a single camera guy. No crowd of people outside, you don't release where we'll be doing this interview. I don't tell Starfleet I'm giving it, and they can shove it if they don't like it.
He'd be wealthy for a long time with how much the offer had finally been.
He had given that interview - one hour long on the dot - and felt better after it. Starfleet was evidently happy with it because they had said nothing on it. He had been careful about the information he gave, making sure to watch every scrap of available information that the media had before he did the interview to make sure his edited facts matched up.
When everything had been said and done... people knew the rest. They had agreed to give him the Captaincy of the Enterprise. Parties happened.
And now... this.
James T. Kirk laid awake in his bed, staring up at the ceiling of sickbay, thinking. This time, there were no reporters. No Board drilling him. Just the slow, silent beeping of his heart monitor from the bio bed.
He closed his eyes again and imagined the stars. It was silent here, the rest of the world very far away. He imagined the smell of greenery all around him, the heat of late summer, and let a few tears fall.
He could deal with people later.
A captain could never cry.
So for right now, he was just Jim.
When they had returned to Earth, it was to madness. News had traveled far faster then they ever could have on impulse power. Earth and all of its people were grieving the loss of Vulcan, the ships that had been destroyed by the Narada, and the thousands of people that had been on those ships by the time they had finally gotten back with a formal escort. Kirk had immediately banned anyone from transporting up to the ship - only off until he gave the word. It hadn't lasted terribly long, they had told him to report immediately after all, but he didn't want to leave until he was sure everyone else was off. He had walked his empty ship until he had found Bones, tucked away in transport room one. Together, they had gone down to the space station.
It had been madness there. Reporters in thousands, security in red trying to hold them back, trying to get information. Kirk had said nothing, just held his head high and walked to the relay transporter down to Earth where the same thing occurred when he took his first breath of non-recycled air. Still he said nothing until he got into the large room with the Board.
It had been silence there. Kirk had stood for five hours and forty six minutes, his body aching and starving, until he had wanted to scream. Even after time in sickbay, he was still sore all over, but bruising would take time to heal. Five hours, forty six minutes of being drilled in every moment of what had occurred.
How had he gotten on the ship? What happened on Delta Vega? (There, he lied. Lied a lot. Amazingly, he had gotten Scotty to agree to lie with him. Kept their stories simple - Scotty had been tracking the sudden something in the atmosphere after sensing the Enterprise's passing, had managed to find him, had perfected his transwarp theory while working on the base.) What happened on the Narada? Tell them everything about Nero and his crew and the ship. How had he known about the lightning storm in space? Why hadn't they gotten information to the other ships faster?
Question after question after question. Kirk told them every bit of truth that he could, lying only when it came to the elder Spock he had met. Finally, finally, they had released him, telling him that they would speak to his crew one by one. Kirk had already known that, but he thought it was their not-so-subtle way of saying 'If you're lying, we'll know'.
He didn't care. He wanted to vanish.
So he did. For five days, though keeping his comm open in case the Board did try to contact him, James T. Kirk vanished. He had slipped out of the building through a small service entrance to avoid the reporters, got back to his dorm, packed up some things, got his cycle, and left. In a leather jacket and jeans, no one knew who he was. When someone recognized him in a bar deep in south... somewhere... he had laughed and said with a shake of his head that he wouldn't be caught dead in Starfleet. They had believed him because he was a charasmatic bastard and because why would someone who had become a star over night be in some shitty bar?
Kirk looked up to the sky that night, laying out on the grass in a big empty field in the middle of nowhere, staring silently at where as a child he had learned Vulcan sat. It was still there, a beautiful crimson dot in the sky that was all a lie. He knew it would take years (but how many?) for the light to stop reaching Earth, for it to vanish from the sky forever.
It was there, with no one at all around for miles, that he could let himself grieve.
No one except one damn old Vulcan knew what he knew. He had been there, lived it himself, the end of Romulus, the black hole, the destruction of Vulcan from two completely different view points. He had, standing there with Sulu with every part of them throbbing in pain, watched the planet collapse on itself. He had, standing on the ice in the bitter cold, watched the sky turn to darkness in his mind.
He closed his eyes on all that remained of Vulcan and let the tears fall, swishing his mouth out with moonshine that burned bitterly on the back of his throat. He carried, and would always carry, that deep seated guilt that he had failed, and that his world had vanished because of those actions. Emotional transference Spock had called it.
Guess that was supposed to explain all the other memories that had come with that damn mind-meld, but it really didn't.
He had come back only when the Board told him too, and it was only for more questioning. He ignored all other attempts to each him for almost another week.
When his mind had finally agreed to deal with people, he had started where few would have - the reporters. He sat down and did a long but casual with the source that offered him the most amount of money that would agree to his terms - he wasn't stupid. We do this nice and casual, just me, the person you chose to speak, and a single camera guy. No crowd of people outside, you don't release where we'll be doing this interview. I don't tell Starfleet I'm giving it, and they can shove it if they don't like it.
He'd be wealthy for a long time with how much the offer had finally been.
He had given that interview - one hour long on the dot - and felt better after it. Starfleet was evidently happy with it because they had said nothing on it. He had been careful about the information he gave, making sure to watch every scrap of available information that the media had before he did the interview to make sure his edited facts matched up.
When everything had been said and done... people knew the rest. They had agreed to give him the Captaincy of the Enterprise. Parties happened.
And now... this.
James T. Kirk laid awake in his bed, staring up at the ceiling of sickbay, thinking. This time, there were no reporters. No Board drilling him. Just the slow, silent beeping of his heart monitor from the bio bed.
He closed his eyes again and imagined the stars. It was silent here, the rest of the world very far away. He imagined the smell of greenery all around him, the heat of late summer, and let a few tears fall.
He could deal with people later.
A captain could never cry.
So for right now, he was just Jim.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-10-18 04:07 pm (UTC)But a vibration at his hip made Bones look up suddenly. Kirk's neurocortal monitor was registering changes in brain pattern, which in all likelihood meant-
Hurrying over there, he hurried around the corner to the private area where George and Kirk were being kept. He caught himself on the wall to slow his progress when he saw Kirk's eyes open. Taking a deep breath, he walked slowly toward him, the smile on his face as genuine as the worry in his eyes.
"Morning, Captain," he said, approaching the bed.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-18 04:13 pm (UTC)The look in those eyes... no one had ever looked at him like that before.
It made his chest feel tight and warm.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-18 04:23 pm (UTC)There were a hundred questions Dr McCoy needed to ask Captain Kirk regarding his medical condition, but he allowed himself a moment to be just Bones talking to Jim.
His voice was low, little hoarse. "I am so fucking glad to see you, Jim."
no subject
Date: 2009-10-18 04:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-18 04:51 pm (UTC)Looking up, he caught Kirk's eyes, burning bright and blue despite the fog of medication, the patterns on his face making them that much more intense. His other hand reached out to touch Kirk's cheek. Dermal reconstruction looks complete, epidermis appears intact, dermal layer underneath regaining its elasticity. Ink deposits appear to reach the subcutaneous tissues, going to require significant cellular regeneration to remove it all...
"Are you hurting anywhere?" he asked, hand moving to touch Kirk's hair gently as he leaned in, almost sitting on the biobed. "We've had you medically sedated since you arrived but we've been easing up on it for a few hours now."
no subject
Date: 2009-10-18 05:07 pm (UTC)It felt like the fingers had no strength at all. His right hand curled in the bedsheets, tensing with a stronger grip.
He could feel a general soreness through his whole body, but he didn't want to be sedated. It was something Bones had yelled at him about in the past, that he wouldn't take enough painkillers for it to be effective, when Bones could even get him to take it at all.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-18 05:41 pm (UTC)The hand on Kirk's cheek slid down to his chest, feeling his heart underneath the recently healed skin. Heartbeat stable. Blood pressure stable.
Bones' other hand pulled out the scanner, and with a half-smile on his face, began the familiar process of running it over Kirk's head. Neurological reading elevated, could be the meld with the other Jim, will have to check that out later.
He dropped the scanner to Kirk's left hand, still holding it carefully as he looked at the readings. The bones had healed, would be sore for another few days, but they were fused properly, strong. Bone tissues intact, periosteum fusing but slower than before... don't know what's gonna happen if he busts this hand up again.
"I want you to try and move the fingers of this hand," he asked softly, dropping the scanner to the bed, and turning to face Kirk more fully. "Show me what you got."
no subject
Date: 2009-10-18 05:49 pm (UTC)Painful enough to make him gasp when he got to the three fingers that had been snapped. Kirk stopped immediately, his teeth showing as he grit them together.
Then Kirk's eyes went wide and he jerked his hand away entirely, the fingers on his right hand digging for a moment as he looked past Bones. There was a sudden sense of loss (http://sehlatbear.livejournal.com/21106.html?thread=666738#t666738), a feeling like solid ground behind dropped out from under him. JIM!
Said he wouldn't leave...!
no subject
Date: 2009-10-18 06:00 pm (UTC)Then something happened. "Jim!" Bones called out, eyes widening as Kirk began shaking and pulling away.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-18 06:08 pm (UTC)Being ripped away suddenly without warning made it flounder.
His neurological readings sky rocketed, then went back to the higher-then-normal levels they had been at but much less level.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-18 06:20 pm (UTC)Fuck, he thought. The connection with Jim, must have been severed, and it hit Kirk with a wallop. "Jim, look at me," he told him, repeating it in a louder voice when Kirk didn't appear to listen the first time.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-18 06:23 pm (UTC)More stable, less drugged, Kirk would have handled it better. Instead, his mind tried to grasp for it, wanting to hold onto it.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-18 06:39 pm (UTC)Neurological readings still elevated. Shit... "Let him go, Jim," Bones told him, pushing a lock of hair out of his face. Heart rate decreasing, breathing returning to normal levels... "I've got you," he said softly. "You're here, and you're home and I've got you now." Another deep breath, another touch to Kirk's chest. "You have to let him go, for both your sakes."
no subject
Date: 2009-10-18 07:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-18 07:21 pm (UTC)He decided to lay it on the line and tell him what he could. "I can't fix you unless I know how bad you're hurt," he told Kirk, looking into his eyes, "and I can't tell how bad you're hurt if Jim is in there with you," he explained.
"I'll have him come see you soon, if you want, but he's gotta rest. He's been giving you some of his strength, his energy," he added, hoping this was making some sense. "He needs to rest up now, just like you."
no subject
Date: 2009-10-18 07:30 pm (UTC)He let his eyes closed, but brought up his hand and searched for Bones'. It had to be the drugs still in his system that kept everything from feeling worse then it did, that kept his mind from thinking back too far.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-18 08:05 pm (UTC)He caught Kirk's hand, lowering his head and pressing it to his cheek, then his mouth. "See, look how good you're doing," he whispered softly, talking into Kirk's skin. "You're strong, Jim, stronger than all of this." He smiled sadly, wishing more than anything he could crawl in bed next to Kirk. "Gonna be fine, Jim... it's just gonna take some time."
no subject
Date: 2009-10-18 08:10 pm (UTC)How long had he been gone?
Kirk would have given nearly anything for Bones to crawl into that bed and let him sleep.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-18 08:51 pm (UTC)He might not be able to slide into the bed, but he could scoot in a little closer, right? Settling further up on the bed, half-leaning on the bed, shifting until their heads were close together. It was as much for Bones as it was for Kirk, Bones needed to be close again, listen to Kirk's breathing, look at him from this familiar position, the way he did when he watched Kirk sleep. He had to remind himself that the man next to him was still Jim, under all that ink, still his best friend, his captain, his lover.
Touching Kirk's hair, he began humming a little as his fingers threaded through the dark blond strands.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-18 09:02 pm (UTC)So he focused on the small things, for now, as that was about what he could manage. He could smell Bones, the warmth of him, probably hadn't showered in a while and it meant Bones smelled more like himself then shampoo or soap (which right now, Kirk wanted).
Love those hands... Kirk thought a bit disjointedly, leaning into the touch in his air. No more drugs, Bones... Not realizing just how much pain they were keeping back.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-18 10:35 pm (UTC)Maybe it was what they both needed.
Holding Kirk, he felt the other man settle next to him, and Bones frowned a little. He wished he could crawl inside Kirk's head and find out what torture his body had been subjected. Bones saw the end result of that torture, and he could treat the physical wounds, would treat them. But the pain that would come when Kirk delved into the memories of what happened, into the realization of what had happened to his body...
Without realizing it Bones had wrapped his arms around Kirk and subconsciously pressed a kiss to his temple.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-18 10:45 pm (UTC)Suddenly, Bones was holding him. It made his body complain more then a little, but he didn't care in the least. His right arm came up and clutched to Bones' back, holding as tightly as he could (enough to set his arm shaking, and the grip was weak). He leaned into that body heat, breathing him in.
The tiniest sound left him, just a weak breath, and he tried to tell Bones with it that he didn't want Bones to leave. He'd rather be in pain (and conscious) and know this was real then his dreams.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-18 11:05 pm (UTC)Kirk was still clinging to him, and it felt so damned good. "Take your time," he added, small circles on Kirk's chest. "There's no hurry, darlin'. You just get better, alright?"
no subject
Date: 2009-10-18 11:24 pm (UTC)He had always lived his life not needing anyone.
Until a doctor had stumbled into his life and threatened to throw up on him.