kirktastic | [Rifts in the Boredom of Forced Sick Leave] -- [Open]

"....Bones and I have... a nonverbal agreement, in a lot of ways. We don't push each other to open up. Kind of a safe haven from people bothering us about things." He shrugged his shoulder. "Spock and I don't talk about that sort of stuff at all."

No, but we did... He smirked at the rest of that thought.

"What do you want to talk about, exactly?"

Jim hesitated.

"That depends," he said finally. "Am I bothering you?"

"Not bothering." Kirk looked away slightly, wondering how to say it, "Just.. just the topic does."

Jim shrugged. "I'm not asking you to talk about your feelings unless you want to," he said. "But the fact remains there are things going on here you need to know about. And I want... what we share to be strong enough to handle that."

He knew it was. It had to be. They were connected, in a way that wasn't his imagination.

"Then talk to me, Jim." Kirk stated bluntly, frowning a little towards his counterpart. "I can handle anything you need to throw at me. If I handle it in a way you don't agree with well... that's to be said later."

That got him a little smile. "I know you can," he said. "Fine. I don't know what Spock's told you, but my Spock isn't on board. He's on the Narada. He... made a trade with her--with her sentient being, who is now partly manifest on the Enterprise."

It was blunt, but there was no easy way to say this. Jim watched Kirk's face carefully.

"Did you know?"

What.

WHAT?

WHAT?

Kirk jerked upright and stared at Jim in horror for a second. "You guys let him go back over there. With the two who... Why!?" He choked, "And there's a part of..."

He looked away, trying to get his head around it. "Jim, start explaining."

Jim took a deep breath, his hand instinctively reaching for any part of Kirk he could touch--but he dropped it without making contact. He'd had a few days to get... well, if not used to the idea, resigned to it.

"I didn't let anyone," he said, some little bitterness coming through in his tone that he had not allowed anyone else to hear. "I returned from a meeting with Acting Captain Spock about the results of the rescue mission to find Spock gone, a note bidding me not to worry and what appeared to be a young Romulan girl in his place. Narada requested his assistance. Spock accepted. Without consulting me. With shields up and neither the Narada nor Spock wishing his return, I felt I had little choice but to respect his instincts."

It was clear that despite his resignation, Jim did not take any of this lightly.

Kirk pulled his other knee up and he closed his eyes. He looked... surprisingly younger like that. Defiant. "Are they still out there, Jim? Right outside our damn ship, with better shielding and weaponry? Why... Why are we putting more people at risk?"

"That's not my call, and you know it," Jim said, watching Kirk. "I asked Spock not to act hastily, because it was the Narada who saved us, who saved you, and the Narada has my Spock. Her master is in pain and Narada's priority is his healing. She's a new life form and she's learning and growing every day. Into what, I don't know. But she has offered none of us harm since we discovered her capacity for free will."

[[OOC - Frankly, I've no idea where we are or why. ;) ]]

"...I..." Kirk looked to Jim in silence, and whispered, "They don't deserve to live. Nero, Ayel... what they've done? How can you say one.. two lives are worth the billions they destroyed? The Narada, even if it was just following orders, wouldn't not fight for their lives."

"That's not my call either," Jim said. "Who deserves to live or not. But it's not the right question, either. Who's measuring worth? Will killing them now, in cold blood, bring back Vulcan? Bring them to justice, by all means, Jim. If they resist, you must do as you must. But Narada's complicated all that. And she, at least, is both not to blame for their crimes and far more powerful than she was before. Equal and opposite complications--both reasons to tread carefully."

Kirk gestured downward with a finger, "Killing them brings them to justice. It makes sure that they never hurt another person with that very ship you're determined to save. But she'll try to save them."

His eyes were narrowed, serious, determined. He saw no reason for leaving them alive. He believed in the worth of life, but what good would keeping them alive do? Leave them a chance to hurt more people? Get revenge on Earth, Starfleet, or someone else? Would Nero ever stop hunting him, his ship, or Spock? What about New Vulcan?

Something cold, perhaps with tentacles, gripped Jim's heart. Kirk couldn't mean it. Not really. But he was serious, that much was clear.

"Here is what I am determined to do, if you're interested," he said. "One: Uphold and protect the values of the Federation and Starfleet. Two: Allow the phenomenon of new life to develop and prove itself before acting as jury and executioner--see number one. And three: ensure Spock's safe return. I don't trust the Narada, Jim. I don't blindly believe she's benign. But I do trust that Spock would not willingly enter into immediate danger without a damn good reason. And in my interactions with her, I have come to trust that she is eager to learn that which will help her crew. And she is malleable. She's capable of more than blind obedience, as she's shown. And that makes her both more dangerous and someone with whom it's possible to negotiate. We're out-shielded and out-gunned as it is. And they have Spock. My best weapon has, thus far, been to show her know exactly what we stand for. In the hopes that some of it will rub off."

Jim's speech pulled a growl from Kirk that he wouldn't have let fall in more formal circumstances. Instead, Kirk unwound from himself, staring Jim in the face, "Are you even listening to what I'm saying, Jim? The ship's a ship. I trust you and Spock in your idea that she's somehow recently gained sentience, though how much I really believe she would tell the truth about that is another question."

He gestured with a hand, scowling, "I care less about her newly gained sentience as I care about her masters. Them I want brought to justice. What I'm saying is that I'm not trying to play jury and executioner on her, but on her masters. Think about it realistically though. If we try to do anything to her masters, what is she going to do? She's going to defend them, which means people on our side could die. I don't see how they can be dealt with without her defending them and needing to be taken care of to. By taken care of, I don't necessarily mean destroying her, but it would stop any chance of her being benign. If we could do this somehow where Nero and Ayel are dealt with and the Narada remained alive and not trying to hunt us down? Then I'm all for it."

He licked his lips, anger bubbling in him, "I'm not going to spare them because of her, Jim. I love how you, and Spock, see to value her existence over everything else that's happened." He held up a finger sharply, "Even if you don't, you have no idea how much you're portraying that to me."

"I am thinking about this realistically," Jim said, his voice tight. "You said it yourself--if you try anything, what will she do? What are your options? Can you surprise her, get Spock off the ship, and take her down?"

He fidgeted, rising.

"What will you tell Starfleet? Are you prepared for the investigation? Can you defend your actions on a purely unemotional level? You say I'm valuing her existence over your situation. You're wrong. What I'm valuing is my conviction that you're not a murderer. That your need for revenge isn't going to dictate your actions."

There. He'd said it. The gulf spread between them, but it was not one Jim was willing to scale. He had killed. He had made these calls himself. But always in the immediate interests of protection. Never as a summary judgment. That was for the Federation--and specifically the people of Vulcan--to work through.

Kirk's fingers clenched on the bed sheets tightly for a moment, trying to keep down an urge to let his volume raise beyond what it should. He was still new to being captain, still green around the edges, even if he had the right stuff behind it. Few captains had to deal with something so strong so early in their careers, nonetheless so young. He closed his eyes and took a breath, forcing away the anger that wanted to come. He couldn't be like that, not right now, not if he wanted his words to mean something and not just be, as Jim suggested, all emotion.

"I think we are thinking two entirely different situations, Jim." Kirk said calmly, more calmly then he even expected of himself. "You weren't there. You haven't seen it. Your Spock didn't feel it. You have no connection to it at all. For you, your universe that you'll return to has Vulcan, has no scars left behind by Nero. Your Federation and Starfleet didn't suffer what ours has. You might say you feel it, understand it, but you never will. You didn't live through it, and for you it could have all the same feeling as watching an old history vid or reading it from a padd. You can distance yourself from it because you have no intimate connection with it."

It was turning into a speech, and he knew it, "I would care more about the Narada, and what it represents, if it wasn't harboring someone who murdered more then six billion people. Jim, are you even LISTENING to that? Six. Billion. People. A PLANET. Six of our ships and seven thousand officers, cadets not even graduated yet, and thousands of crew. All I'm hearing from you is about this ship. Hurrah. I care about the man who is weilding that ship as a weapon, who not only has the possibility to do more damage, but has the will to do it."

Kirk dragged his fingers over the markings over his arm. "You don't pet a mad dog and give it a bone after its torn up a child. You take it out back and put it out of its misery before it hurts someone else. He's mad. Completely and utterly mad."

Kirk lifted his head and focused on Jim, "Why do you care about one sentient life form that is not completely innocent over the lives of all those people... and all the people he could still, and would still, harm? Have you lost your perspective that much, that you can't see the big picture instead of a single piece of the puzzle?"

"If that's all you're hearing, you're not listening to me," Jim said quietly, his hand clenching at his side. "Maybe you can't. I understand you've been through things I haven't. Maybe that distance is valuable. And maybe I've developed it through the things that have happened to me. Decisions I've had to make. Lives that have been in my hands. Do you think I've never had a difficult decision to make? That I've never seen atrocities committed before my eyes?

"This has nothing to do with the ship, aside from the possibility that she might be turned to our way of thinking and thereby solve our problems without bloodshed. This has everything to do with you. And your willingness to commit murder in cold blood, to abandon the legal and medical process, to let your anger guide you. To ignore the right of what's left of Vulcan to be part of that process, if at all possible. To determine the situation as it stands now."

Jim looked open and stricken, thinking about Kodos, thinking about what he'd wanted to do and counseling Kevin away from doing it. Kodos hadn't deserved the life he'd built for himself. But he hadn't deserved anyone's summary judgment.

"How would her 'turning our way' solve our problems? What are you asking me to do, Jim? To bring Nero back to Starfleet for a trial? LEGAL and MEDICAL process? This is bigger then that now. I think you've completely lost your perspective."

Kirk stood up, walking away from Jim and to the large window. He stared out unhappily, scowling, body light and dark in the stark light. "I'm willing to kill someone, but this isn't murder. What he did was murder. He took billions of innocent lives. Killing him would be a justice... preventing future pain. He escaped a prison planet run by Klingons, Jim. Throwing him in a prison won't help. Putting him on trial? Do you realize the kind of havoc that would break loose? Starfleet lost so much and Vulcan even more. They'll tear him to pieces."

He let out a slow breath, "I don't think you have the guts to do what is humane. You're offering mercy, and it feels like you just want to pull the wool over your eyes and let everything he did not mean anything. A trial... legal. Medical." He shook his head slowly, leaning his forearm on the glass and his forehead on his forearm.

Jim shook his head too, not caring if Kirk could see it.

"I've lost perspective, Jim? I'm not the one who thinks he's bigger than Starfleet, who thinks it's his duty and right to decide. I'm not asking for anything but for Spock not to be blown up. That, and the opportunity to see what we're up against. We don't know what the Narada is capable of. What we do know is that already, the two beings closest to Nero have more or less betrayed him. Do they deserve to die so that you can dispose of him before he's conscious again? Damn it, Jim, the fact that you can accuse me of cowardice and deliberate blindness to the situation and the hurt he's caused..."

He consciously unclenched his fist. It was hurting his hand.

"You can believe whatever you want." It hurt more than he would have guessed, knowing exactly how they differed. "You have no reason to grant my position any more credence that a stranger on the street. But I couldn't do what you're contemplating. Though I've contemplated it myself. And decided that I'm only one man. I'm not the one who gets to decide who lives or dies. Even if it might be more convenient. If that changed, I'd be a different person. I'd be Kodos. I'd be Nero."

He moved towards the door, his expression stony, anticipating being thrown out. The argument could go nowhere. He was rapidly losing focus, becoming emotional himself. He was too close--not to the problem, not like Kirk was, but to Kirk himself.

He was still convinced he was right.

Kirk's entire body tensed all at once. A thousand memories, sharp as razor blades and twice as painful. Kodos. It clenched his throat, made him feel like a child again. Thoughts of their argument died in his mind.

"Tarsus IV." He whispered, so quiet, yet it carried in the clear silence between them, even across the gulf dividing them.

Jim's head whipped around, cold dread replacing the rising anger inside him. He'd spoken without thinking, from his gut. He hadn't assumed... hadn't expected...

"Jim, no," he said quietly, as if Kirk would now tell him he was wrong, that he hadn't been there too, that they didn't share that.

The eyes that stared at Jim were younger, a horror in his expression. Jim had been there. He could never have known the truth, enough truth to whisper those words in that context, that name, if he didn't know.

The universes were closer together then Kirk ever, ever wanted them to be. He looked down, unable to take that look that Jim was giving him. He rarely even ever had nightmares about then, none the less try to actively think about it.

It hadn't stopped him from having a small hoard of food in the dorms during his time at the academy.

Without noting the steps in between, Jim was beside Kirk, his arm around him. He was still angry--this was not resolved, and he figured there'd be more confrontation before it was--but he could but it on hold. Forget it in the context of this, of the way Kirk wasn't looking at him, the tension in those shoulders.

"Jim, I'm sorry," he said nonsensically. He hadn't sent Kirk there. He couldn't have stopped it. But somehow it seemed unfair that they'd both had to share that. Of all things.

"Don't." Kirk choked on the word, body tensing even as he leaned into Kirk, "Don't.. pity. Don't be sorry." He brought his legs up, mind not even sure what to think about this. "I don't want to think about that."

But he had lived through this well, another mass suicide, another man he had been powerless to stop.

He stared downwards before whispering, "I don't want to lose a friend, but just like you... I can't back down from what I believe in."

[Rifts in the Boredom of Forced Sick Leave] -- [Open]

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