kirktastic | Entries tagged with not so boldly going

Jim was both looking forward to it and nervous about it. They had agreed to meet the healer at a smaller hotel somewhere away from both the medical centers as well as the Federation guest quarters. It felt almost like trying to buy some back alley off-world drugs or deliver information of a disclosed nature, to the point Jim almost wanted to call it off. His hands were shoved into his pockets as he walked along side of Bones, who seemed almost as tense as he was.

Neither of them knew how this was going to go, or what the healer would even do finding out that it was three humans bonded to one Vulcan. Jim almost wanted to avoid using Spock's name, but had a feeling that would only make things about a million times worse. What made it all that much worse, at least to Jim, was he had no idea what was going to happen. He hated that helpless feeling.

He had the room number memorized - a nice larger room that they could talk and get every, or as many as possible, answer they needed so they could chose. So they could figure out the reality of the situation they were in. Jim thought about the moment in the court room, the ghostly feeling of Spock's hand on his. He hadn't even consciously known that Spock was 'listening in' on him, or just able to feel his emotions so keenly. It was disturbing as much as it had been helpful. Spock, even though they weren't talking and hadn't since he had left the house two weeks ago, had reached out to comfort him.

Honestly, he didn't know how to feel about that still. He didn't even know how Spock felt about what had happened during pon farr. Jim had acted so.. horrified about what Spock had done, but those images that still flickered about in his head, what Prime had confirmed.... Jim's Spock, Prime... they had killed Jim. In cold blood, they had killed him on the hot sands of Vulcan. Immediately after, they had been stricken, guilty, angry at themselves... was that any different than what Spock had done? Was killing any better than what had happened?

Jim sighed, glancing over to Bones. He could see a tightness in Bones' mouth, his knuckles white clenched against each other. It was about how he felt, too.

They went up to the hotel room and knocked, and Jim wasn't surprised to find out the healer had gotten there first.

Current Location: NVC

The parts that came first, those were no problem. He had told the story before, complete and whole, during the single interview he had granted after the Narada incident. A hunk of that, a little more than half, had gone to purchasing the house on Risa. It would have been a better place to be, and Jim tried to keep the calm and peace of it in his mind as he told the story again. He had requested that there be no questions until he had finished the first story, whole and complete, because interrupting meant breaking the thoughts that came.

The questions were no problem as well. He had gone through them with the tribunal back on Earth in detail a million times worse than the lawyers were coming up with. Nero's defense infuriated him, in ways that were difficult to explain. How could anyone defend a man who had destroyed so much? How could someone work to get Nero and Ayel a lighter sentence? Nero was a madman. There was no punishment great enough to punish the man for what he had did. Jim couldn't reason that insanity was a reason to do what Nero had done. Just as Bones had said, he told the story, answered their questions.

It was the second part that was far more difficult.

It was more difficult to put into words to start with. He had been so heavily drugged at the time that things were unfocused in his memories, more emotion and color than actual imagery. He was grateful for the silence in the court when he had to struggle to come up with the words, less grateful (and equally, grateful somehow) for the looks of pity. Bad for him, good for the case. It was hard to keep the story in a linear fashion and not add in things he had learned later until he got that far.

When he got as far as the tattoos, the ones criss-crossing down his left arm that still remained, his voice... died in his throat. There was no sound at all, not even in his head. He stared down at the black marking of his own personal failure and grief that was still so vivid against his skin. It had been his inability to stop the drill in time that had let Vulcan be destroyed. He could have prevented it. The madman had understood, broken out of his insanity that they so wanted to use as a defense, the strength of his own pain and loss enough to divert what he had planned for that arm, whatever it was, and instead spiral the names of seven Federation ships. He had told what he knew of them, what little there was, almost like a funeral. Then... Vulcan itself. Nero had known its surface, better than Jim did except in ghostly memories of Spock's. Nero had known it for years, its people and history... then had erased it.

Nothing of all that came from his lips.

People looked between them as the silence became longer and longer, wondering why Captain Kirk had stopped in his story. It had cut off like a novel with its end missing, clearly not done. Out of respect they stayed silent, but as the silence continued it was uneasy. He was staring at his hands, motionless except for the rise and fall of his chest and the blinking of his eyes. Finally, the judge leaned forward and said in a quiet tone, "...Captain?"

He wanted to find the words to answer her, but couldn't. It felt like everything that had happened was collapsing back in on himself, imploding silently in his own little world.

Then, suddenly, there was a warmth in all the coldness. A single point of light in the darkness that had come like the stinking metal-oil of the Narada's interior where hell had come to Jim. At first, Jim didn't understand it until he recognized something very small and subtle. A starry sky, light by light, started to come into view in the darkness he had focused on. Something ethereal curled through him, nudging him as determined as a pup. Spock... He knew it, almost more instinctively then consciously. It was like Spock was sitting right there, just behind him, all the warmth and certain strength of Spock's body pressed against his back, strong arms wrapped around his chest. Warmth curled over his aching hand, between his fingers, massaging the ache as a foreign love curled between cracks in his memories. It was enough to break the silence, enough strength to continue through the memories.

The story continued as if it hadn't stopped. He attempted to explain what Nero had down to write down the names of the destroyed ships as well as Vulcan, then started to write about himself using Jim's skin as his paper. Things after that got beyond blurry, after Ayel had injected him with something black (or was it bright green?)

He finished the story in sickbay, for now, because he knew nothing for days after that. Just bits and pieces. He would like them question him, he would answer, then he would tell the last part of the story. Healing, the Narada, Agura, Jim and Spock on the Narada, the Romulans on the planet, getting Nero into the brig, and how they had come to the new colony. If it was possible, the questions were worse. They kept asking for clarification about things that he had no answer to. He could tell it was frustrating, and when he went into detail about his hand being broken and his father's torture he saw one of the members of the jury actually turn their head away and gag.

By the end of the final story, by the end of their endless questions, Jim was raw. His throat was raw from speaking, his stories, the questions, the answers taking up hours of time that would be unbroken due to the circumstances of the need for privacy. His hand hurt so badly that he kept having to shake it out, but the cramp returned over and over until he wanted to scream. It felt like the tiny bones of his hand, most of them probably rebuilt from the osteoregenerator more than any original bone remaining. The scars on his face itched badly. His mind was raw from the memories of pain, anguish, and suffering, some of it not even fully his own. It was those emotions that told Jim why Jim and his Spock would never be able to understand his position. It was why there were people who were willing to risk Nero getting free. It was why...

He had lived through the destruction of Vulcan in every way possible except being on its surface. He had watched the Vulcans in sickbay, the raw emotion on their faces as their skies went dark. He had been with them, sat with them, on the limping ride home to Earth while they had none to go to.

He would have rather lived through Tarsus again then what had happened that February 11th.

When finally he was allowed to go, Jim thanked the court and walked out without looking back. Everything in him felt cold and distant and hard, very far away. Just the Captain, just for now, until he could find his mental footing again. He opened the door, and walked out into the hallway.

Current Location: NVC Courtroom

After everything that had happened the last few days, whatever had infected him and boiled his blood on top of his stress about the new bond and the trial... Jim was starting to fall back into bad habits Bones had been trying to break of him for years. He didn't want to eat as it only added to the cramping in his stomach, and sleep... it either didn't come, or it came in fits.

There was just too much in his head, spinning endlessly. He sat there on the deck, back up against the wall of the building, with a PADD half propped up in his lap. Why did Vulcans have to be so damn exclusive about things? It was making his search for a healer, something to try and help them figure out what they needed to know about, and what they could do about, the bond. The last thing he needed was information spreading out about what had happened with Spock, honestly wasn't even happy with the idea of being caught going to the healer at all. Caught? What am I, sneaking out of the house? Jim almost laughed to himself.

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall, thinking. There had to be a way. Bones probably could contact someone, maybe even knew someone who could find someone else, but it had to be someone... they could trust. Maybe, more specifically, someone Jim could trust. This all felt too much like having to go see a psych. Way, way too much like having to see a psych. He'd have to talk to Bones about it, and they'd have to figure it out together. It was the only real chance they had to go about this without half of the planet and the media knowing, at least in Jim's mind.

He didn't want to have to think about what was coming up for the day. They had passed along the information along to him... he would be testifying today. The sheer idea of it had his stomach curling up on itself, the bones in his hand threatening to scream at him. He didn't want to sleep; the idea of nightmares about all that had happened were worse than the nightmares themselves.

At least the sunsets were beautiful on Sha'Kwai. The sunrises, coming up over the ocean, were more so.

He got up and put the PADD side, walking down to the sands and down the sands to the beach and down the beach to the water. He dropped his robe just outside of the water's range, then stepped into the lukewarm water. It felt like almost neutral-temperatured water, like a bath left too cool. He dove into the water.

(OOC: This is running on the premise that the trial was postponed for two days until the sexpop was dealt with, as well as this happens after a tread that will be coming up.)

Current Location: NVC

It had been a far, far too long day at the trial. To say that Jim's mood was shit was, at best, an understatement. There was a deep part of him that didn't believe in the idea of fair trials. It was a part of him that had lived through Tarsus IV and watched good people be killed to 'ensure' the survival of others. It was a part of him that had been the genius-level repeat offender Pike had known, that had started off in the bad eyes of the law just trying to survive. It was a part of him that still rebelled against the fact he hadn't just killed Nero.

Jim would never understand the choice he had made in his own mind to kill Nero. He was sure that Jim's universe, in many ways, was just that different than this one. Against Nero, it had been a fight. It meant survival. Listening to the defense for Nero try to get him saved under the bullshit of being insane... Jim had no doubt the Romulan was completely and utterly insane, but he also knew that Nero was a very, very smart man who had known exactly what he was doing. Nero just didn't care that it was wrong. Eye for an eye.

Bones was gone, having gotten a comm from the hospital asking for his assistance with a human patient. The look in those dark eyes, a silent Will you be okay, Jim?, had briefly broken the spell of determination, anger, guilt, and resentment that had been around Jim all day. The faintest of smiles, a touch of their hands, and Bones had left.

Now he was alone and all of it was coming back. It was something he didn't want to feel, didn't want to be acting like this and feeling like his hands were dirty. He didn't want to feel guilty about Vulcan, didn't want to feel guilty because Jim insisted it was wrong.

His hand flexed at his side, the bones hurting down deep. The ache had started early in the day, and even with Bones having to massage it out of sight of any Vulcans when it had started to cramp, it was starting all over again. Maybe a shower's heat would soak the bone out of it, but he doubted. Hadn't helped before.

Jim walked down the hall of the guest quarters, heading for his room he was sharing with Bones.

Current Location: NVC

After a long night at the theater, meeting Spock and his brother, and everything afterwards, it had been difficult to sleep. Along with the tickets, Jim had received a message about the trial's start the next morning. He had refused to let it bother him all night, just wanting to enjoy some time with Bones despite everything they had been forced to go through recently.

That didn't make for good sleep, though. Sometime before dawn, Jim found himself wide awake, laying in bed, Bones curled up against his side dead asleep. It took some work to get himself out of Bones' arms, not wanting to disturbing the sleeping man, before he grabbed his discarded robe over the back of a chair and pulling it on. He brushed a kiss over Bones' hair, affectionate while no one could see it, and stepped outside.

The deck was level with the ground, so it was no trouble to walk out onto the deck and past it, out towards the beautiful area that surrounded their guest quarters. Jim had a working theory that because the Vulcans had been on a desert planet before, without the ability to use plant life because of the strain of water consumption, that now that they could they decided to use planets as much as possible. He wondered how logical it was, but decided that knowing Vulcans to a degree, they would find a way to make it logical and convince everyone else in the process. The thought made him smile, just slightly, as he found himself a low wall that faced the ocean and sat down.

It was both easier and harder to think while he watched the sun rise, watching the ripples of orange, red, and pink climb higher in the sky. So much hinged on this trial, one he would be going to each day of. He had choices to make about it, as such a major player in what had happened. He would have to explain his actions to the court and by addition, Starfleet.

Let me have done the right thing.

Current Location: Guest Quarters, NVC

After he had... spoken with, needed with, something with the elder Spock, brought him back to the city and got him settled, Kirk found himself feeling lost. At ends. Bones wasn't in their quarters, so he got rid of the clothing he had put back on after being in the house in the wilderness straight into the trash. He didn't want to bother with seeing it ever again and the memories it held.

He sat down nude in front of a console, discretely tucked away as if the Vulcans had decided to hide technology in their guest quarters. The ones he had with Bones were beautiful, with a private deck that spread out towards the ocean. It smelled like the ocean. He didn't care, right now.

He checked his messages, his lips twisting. Just a single new message from Jim, a reply to his own. Kirk's fingers hesitated, then he finally started typing.

Jim,

...If its the only thing I know right now, congratulations aren't in order.

JTK

He sent the message, then walked to the closet in the room. Some of their clothing was hanging in it, gold against blue, but Jim pushed that aside. He had seen them when he first came to the guest quarters. The long, beautiful robes that Jim had no idea what they were for, but he didn't care.

He pulled them from the closet and slid them around his body. The material was smooth, rich, and light. It was a deep blue with swirls of black, and folded across his chest. It took a few minutes to figure out the catches that laced it close. He shifted, almost smiling, before he walked barefoot out of his room through the private deck, and down towards the scrap of beach. It was beautiful, it reminded him of Risa.

...except he was alone.

(OOC: Since the SPrime thread hasn't ended, the beginning of this post may change in the future but it'll work for now!)

Current Location: NVC

It hadn't been an easy decision to leave Bones behind, to go out on some wild goose chase based on a feeling he had. His body still hurt, still bore some of the worst bruises from Spock's pon farr, still wasn't caught up on sleep and food. Bones, Jim knew pretty damn well, was less than happy with him for doing this. But... he equally hoped, was pretty sure, that Bones understood it. That same something that had driven him to find the elder Spock on Delta Vega, completely unconsciously ~~not fate, he didn't believe in that~~, was driving him now. Besides, he had more than one reason to find the older Vulcan. It would mean the life or death of the bond now strung painfully between the four of them, without shape or known reason and making his head throb.

As far as anyone knew, and as far as Jim could tell, no one knew who the elder Spock really was. He couldn't find any information on him, and was mostly assuming Spock was living under an assumed name. Old codger was cunning like that. Didn't make finding him any easier, and in the end he let that something guide him like a compass needle.

He guessed he was maybe fifty miles outside of the city's outer most limits, down into the wilderness they hadn't gotten into yet. The cycle had yet to be slowed down, just following wherever the instinct led him. It hummed under his thighs, slightly aggravating bruises down there but was ignored. He could still feel Spock, the youngest of the lot of Spocks, in the back of his mind but it was thankfully, mostly, distant as if Spock was concentrating on something else. The previous night hadn't been easy, but once Spock had laid off on focusing on him it had gotten better. Jim had a very determined mind to do something about that, for himself and Bones.

He turned through a pair of trees, and brought the cycle up to a hard halt as the trees suddenly dropped away to expose a clearing. Slowly, Jim smiled.

It was a beautiful looking home, blended into the area and large. It seemed almost oddly shaped, maybe a pentagon or hexagon with several of them put together, all done in earth-colored tones. He had come up along the front of the home, if Jim could guess, and other than the miles of wilderness on all sides it could have been tucked into any one of the city streets.

He pulled the cycle up near the front door, turned it off, and left it there. Not like anyone else would be coming. He had read reports that some Vulcans had turned away from the masses, deciding to trek out across the surface of the planet to live their own lives, too damaged from the mass trauma of the planet's destruction. Jim wondered how many of them he had met himself, down in sickbay and tucked into cramped rooms on the Enterprise.

Jim pressed the buzzer by the front door, knowing it was the right place to be.

Current Location: Prime's NVC Home

Jim well knew the difference between waking up from normal sleep and waking up from drug-induced sleep. There was a film that had to be clawed away every time he woke up from a drug-induced sleep, no matter how good it was. That was how Jim woke up, clawing fiercely to get that thick feeling away from his eyes and mouth until he woke up properly.

He stared up at the ceiling in confusion. ...He hurt less than he could remember previously, and he couldn't hear anything in the room. His limbs felt thick, numb... he tried to push himself up to his elbows.

His whole body shuddered, and he had to roll over onto his side. A groan came out of him, and he tried to focus on getting the world to balance correctly. "...'ones?" He said through the dry-thick mouth.

Then sudden reality. He had been trying to protect Bones. Trying to keep Spock away...

He forced himself up with a gasp as stiff muscles complained, and he looked around as his hand clawed at the side of his neck. The feeling of a hypo against his skin.

Current Location: Spock's NVC Home

Jim's body was nearing the end of its limits. He knew Bones wasn't doing much better, despite them patching each other up. Trying to get proper food in both of them had been less than easy - no replicators in the house. Sleep kept getting interrupted, and Spock was anything but gentle each time as the bond was getting tighter and tighter.

He could feel Spock in his head all the time, now. It made him uncomfortable, twitchy, and almost nauseous. This thing he hadn't asked for, didn't want.

He sat on the edge of the bed in the second bedroom, staring at the wall. Bones was asleep behind him, a slow deep breathing, and thank fuck so was Spock. Spock had passed out beside Nyota hours and hours ago, and Jim had taken it to try and sleep beside Bones.

...Except he couldn't. Too much was going through his head, over and over on replay. His head throbbed, like a muscle that had been over-exercised. The feeling of something... that feeling of something... it was clearer, now.

He knew he had to answer it, soon. He planned to talk to Bones when he woke up. There was... a lot they needed to talk about.

Current Location: Spock's NVC Home

(OOC: This happens during the SPF thread, but we decided to make it a new post so it didn't get lost.)

It took time to get Jim to come back into his own head. Spock had gotten in there, deep as could be, and blew everything apart. At least that was what the headache pounding in his head told him. He could feel Spock curled up beside him, and something told him that Spock was asleep. He didn't question it, didn't have the mind to even think twice about it. It hurt too bad, and there was something he had to do.

He had smelled Bones on Spock. Faint, he didn't even want to know the extent of it, but he could smell it. Bones was here. Jim conjured images of Spock attacking Bones like Spock had attacked him. Taking Bones... the entire thing made his stomach churn.

He wondered what time it was. Was it still the same day?

Jim forced himself up out of the bed, every muscle in his body complaining, straining. He didn't dare look down at himself, because he had no doubt in his head that he was... disgusting. Mottled in bruises too. Didn't matter, didn't fucking matter. If Bones was here...

Without looking back, Jim walked (limped, crawled, something not dignified that he was choosing not to think about) out of the room. He was grateful when Spock didn't stir. Sorry, Nyota. Can you keep Spock busy while I find out if he raped Bones? It made a quiet, ~~not~~ hysterical sound bubble out of his throat, and Jim walked through the house and looked in one bedroom (nothing there), then the second.

There he saw a body curled in the shadows of the bed.

Jim walked into the room, and croaked out, "Bones?" It barely even came out as a word and far more a sound. He moved to sit on the edge of the bed beside Bones, reaching out to touch his hair.

Swallow, try again. "Bones?" Whisper.

Current Location: Spock's Sha'Kwai Home

Jim slipped out of the party raging on lower decks and went up towards the bridge. He greeted the beta crew, speaking briefly with the helm about their course and destination. With the information in mind, Jim went into his office and let the door lock behind him.

He sat down slowly at his desk and leaned back, staring up at the ceiling blankly. He felt about a million years older than he had a year ago, even though he was only twenty-six. There was so much going on, so much changing so rapidly that he needed just a little while to get his metaphorical feet back under him with some quiet time.

That didn't explain the odd feeling in the back of his head. It was very faint, something that without really thinking about it he tended to ignore. Yet... he realized it was there, in the few silent moments of his day. A tugging, an urging.

Jim turned in his chair and pulled up their current course. They were just about to New Vulcan. They'd arrive there at night by Vulcan standards, and in the morning they would be heading down for the first time. He wondered how long it would be before the trial would begin, if Starfleet had better arrangements for Nero and Ayel than being on the Enterprise as they were scheduled for a near over-haul on some things like crew assignments.

It meant every last person would be clearing out of the Enterprise so that repairs, cleaning, and other small things that could only be done in a mass way when they were docked somewhere safely like this. Jim knew that they had managed to build a small, still in progress space dock above the planet and that was their destination. The Enterprise would be cleaned top to bottom, every last thing repaired and double checked. After this, Jim was fairly sure, they would be starting their first five year mission. A little late, maybe, but... it was exciting in a way. A Captain's career could be defined in just one of those five year missions.

His reports to Starfleet were ready to go, typed up and waiting. Things of every nature... the time he had dealt with the Klingons that had ended with the Farragut's destruction (typed directly after the attack and a secondary done recently), the time of his and his father's capture, every last other universe-person that had been aboard the ship (attached along with Ephram's reports), the transporter problems (fixed now, hopefully double checked with the dock repairs)...

He still wondered about how the Vulcans would treat him and his crew. He had said the same thing to Jim, about how he worried that deep inside they would resent the Enterprise for not being able to save their home world. By all reports, despite the major loss of most of their people, the Vulcans seemed to be doing very well for themselves. Medical reports were flowing from the new Vulcan colony, when they needed more healers and doctors than they had for themselves. Builders from outside worlds, people staying to help with every kind of building and had decided to stay...

Jim rubbed his brow. He worried about his crew, and how they would hold up with the changes and trials of every sort that were coming up.

"...Captain's log stardate..."

Current Location: Kirk's Office

He woke by inches. Dragging, slow, aching inches. Kirk's eyes felt like they had sand bags on them as he tried to force them open. He started to move and -- okay, okay, something was bitching at him for doing it. So, he started out a little slower and just shifted his head. It lolled on his neck and he opened his eyes to stare upwards. Ceiling. Blurry ceiling. Lights. ...Bad, bad lights.

He closed his eyes again and let his head drop.

He woke (woke? drifted out out of darkness? whichever...) again. This time, he decided to do things differently. "Lights, 20%." I sound like a frog... Kirk thought to himself, and with the lights dropped, risked opening his eyes again. Much better. He could keep them open this time. He glanced around, just taking in where he was, and grunted as memory started to offer up some information on what he was doing in the officer's (ambassador's?) lounge. He focused across the room, and decided that it was the officer's lounge - there was a dart board on the wall which someone had put up a while ago.

Kirk let a hand flop to his face, then rubbed down it. He groaned as he started to pull himself together. All of his muscles complained - sleeping sitting in this incredibly awkward position? Not a real good idea, evidently, because it made every part of you complain later. He worked himself so he was laying out on the couch instead of hunkered over half-sitting up, and let himself get used to something new before he tried to do something as daring as actually getting up.

He tilted his head to the side, spotting the fourth-full bottle of pine-liquor on the table. That's right... he had met James, went and had a drink with him and... "Aw, fuck," Kirk breathed out. Then he'd let the man use him like a whore. While the whore part didn't usually bother him... he couldn't believe he had done it on his own ship. Check out the Fed's golden boy, Kirk said sarcastically inside his own head, laying out on a couch in his officer's lounge, disgusting, fucked open, and naked. Sure are proud of him.

Every little movement told him he had gone a bit too far, that he'd been an idiot. That was no surprise, it wasn't completely unfamiliar. He sighed through his teeth and forced himself to stand up. Kirk looked down his body, then squeezed his eyes shut. Even in the low light, he could see the mottling bruises. When he twisted to look back at the couch... shit. It'd have to be cleaned. He eyed a dark spot on the material and rubbed his face. In the past, he would have staggered/limped back to his dorm room with Bones and puppy-eyed some healing out of the doctor, at least to where every blink didn't hurt. Now... now... he couldn't. Bones told him, face on, that he didn't want to know about what he did... outside of their bedroom. He couldn't ask Bones to help.

Kirk limped a little across the room, grabbing his clothing. At least it had survived that encounter in tact. It took way, way too long to get into his shirt and pants, gasping as he discovered his shoulder had been hurt at some point when he tried to get his arm through a sleeve. Who the hell can I ask... The list was small, so it didn't take long. This is going to be fucking hard to explain. Kirk grumbled to himself.

When he was dressed, he sat. His body was complaining loudly for a rest, threatening to give out in the knees or head. His head was pounding... had it gotten hit, or was it just the alcohol? Could be either, for all he knew. Kirk rubbed his hands into his knees, trying to get himself prepared to deal with sickbay. ...gonna need to call her up here. Limping down to sickbay like this? Great for ship rumors... at least with her at my side, if she'll even help, if looks more official. Yea, great. Now he was trying to cover this up...

This. He went through the memories of the previous night, and just... frowned. He and James had fucked. James had given him exactly what he'd wanted.

...Why the hell didn't he feel good, then? Well, besides the normal 'ow this hurts'... normally there was a relaxed feeling in him, like he'd gotten something out of his system. Where his frustrations and annoyances were in control and he could deal with them again. He just felt... sort of grumpy, sore, and... and...

Kirk scowled at the wall. What was this feeling? He forced himself back to his feet and pressed the comm at the wall. "Kirk to Nurse Christine Chapel, report to the officer's lounge on Deck B."

He sat back down to wait, closing his eyes. I felt better that night with Bones and Spock.

Current Location: Officer's Lounge, then Sickbay

When he had a chance, Kirk did something he had to do. He slipped silently down to sickbay, and to the room where Spock had hidden himself. He punched in his override code, and slipped into the room. It was dim in the room... but never dark. Kirk had seen Spock's rooms - it was darker in his quarters then here. It was warm, and already he could feel himself starting to sweat.

Slowly he crossed the room, eying the sleeping Vulcan. Spock was curled up on his bed, his head in his hands. Kirk walked over to the edge of the bed, frowning. There was a bottle of vitamins and an empty glass of water on the table beside the bed. Kirk grabbed that and went into the bathroom, filling it up, sitting it back on the table.

Spock looked... messy. That wasn't normal. His hair was messy, and... Kirk was surprised to see a faint scruff on his jaw. As he watched, he saw Spock ... move. Almost like a wince.

He wiped his brow and sighed, leaning over the bed. "...worried about you." He whispered, brushing his fingertips over Spock's temple, through his hair. "Gotta wake up at the end of all of this. Not just for me... for Nyota, even for Bones."

He leaned over and touched his forehead against the side of Spock's head. I'm here for ya. You're not alone. You let me know... when you're gonna wake up, and I'll be here.

Current Location: Sickbay

(OOC: This actually occurs after his escape from sickbay but before the party. Yay timeline fuckery!)

Somehow, he had made it back to their rooms. What had happened in the hallway... Kirk shuddered, full body, and staggered towards the bathroom. It required sitting on the toilet and both hands to be able to get off his boots, whole body shaking with the effort. When had he gotten so weak? He had been through beatings before... he shucked pants and shirts and turned to get into the shower.

He caught his reflection in the mirror.

Kirk's body, his entire world, froze in time. He stepped forward once, twice, staggering on shaking legs. He grasped at the edge of the sink and all of his weight leaned on it as he stared in horror at what stared back at him.

He looked like shit. Heavy bags under his eyes, a stubble growing that he never let grow. The tattoos were brilliant in their freshness, the edges crisp. He had been rubbing at them, rubbing off dirty brown, and now understood. He knew exactly what those words and markings meant. The lives carved into his skin.

Nero had kept a part of him behind.

Kirk couldn't feel his body shaking, couldn't take his eyes away from his own face. He saw it. Traces of green and blue and orange, so orange... everything else was black. Even the blood was black. Gleaming and black, dripping down the edge of the table, his father screaming screaming screaming...

His own scream echoed the one in his head and he slammed his fist into the mirror, cracking it. Designed not to shatter. It twisted his face, cracking it, displacing it.

He staggered back from the mirror and groped at the opaque glass of the shower until it opened and fell against the back wall, sinking down. He reached up, fingers sliding across the controls, and water fell. It was freezing at first, then got hotter, hotter... until it felt like it was burning. Kirk just buried his head against his knees, remembering.

Current Location: Kirk's Quarters

Kirk had never been so grateful for knowing the layout of the ship like he did. He was able to slip out of sickbay unseen, but outside of it, he knew it would be tricky. At his slow pace, it was a long walk to his quarters. The clothing given to him by sickbay rubbed against the scabbed tattoos until he wanted to scream as he walked calmly, slowly.

The wall was required to keep him from stumbling as he went. For once, he was incredibly grateful their medical team had quarters close to sickbay because he found Bones' room long before he would have gotten to his own. He quickly punched in the override and slipped inside.

It was only long enough to replicate his uniform. He let the white material fall to the floor and carefully, using the bed, he managed to get the uniform on.

Unfortunately, it required a long rest after just a short walk and getting on clothing. Kirk refused to look at his body, at the damage that had been written into the skin. Fuck that, he couldn't take it right now. Couldn't.

Why did he leave Bones back there?

Kirk rubbed his brow slowly, exhaustion pulling at his eyelids, wanting him to lay back on the bed and fall asleep. He forced himself to stay awake and looked around the room. He blinked, realizing that it looked... kinda empty. What have you been up to, Bones?

With a force of effort he could barely sum up, Kirk got himself back up to his feet. He left the room, and with that same slow tread, trying to look like he was taking a calm stroll around the ship, he went towards the nearest turbolift to head up to the higher deck where his quarters lied.

Current Location: On the Move

The room he had been put into was dimly lit and stifling. The dim lighting was highly preferred to the brilliant white of sickbay proper, but it felt like it was closing in on him. Thanks to Spock, or so he was fairly sure he had told his request to, the drugs keeping his brain from functioning had been taken away or at least decreased severely.

He could think, but he could also hurt.

When Bones had come into the room last, he could very vaguely remember something about his hand. The heat Spock put out had feel so good on his left hand, but despite the fact that the hand looked... somewhat normal... (considering it was still slightly swollen and the tattoos showed vividly), it hurt. It felt stiff and awkward and clumsy in a way that made him nervous or scared the shit out of him.

Okay, so maybe they were still drugging him at least a little.

The constant unmatched beeps of the heart monitors was starting to drive him insane, at least when he was awake. His own was normal (he was pretty sure?) but... his father's... that one was slow, so slow, and scared the hell out of him. Bones hadn't told him anything about George (had he even asked?) and so he knew nothing at all, only that his father looked like he was in a coma.

What had Nero done?

Current Location: Sickbay

(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.

Current Location: Sickbay

I wish I even knew where to start writing, so I suppose this is the best beginning I can offer for now. There's too much to talk about, things I have a feeling I'm already forgetting. Risa seemed to do that, to capture everything that there was about the entire vacation and keep it there, taking it away from me. Like already, I'm forgetting stuff about hat happened there. Little things, like the exact color of the ocean, the shades of the sunset I sat and watched with Bones, exactly which star I pointed out to Spock. All together... I think I want to buy that little place Bones and I rented. You know, make it our place that we can go when we get a chance for shoreleave.

( ...Maybe not. Fucking sounds like I'm trying to settle down or something. Still, I kinda like the idea. )

Current Location: Kirk's Office

When it rains, it pours, the old saying goes. Couldn't be more true then right now. Everything just seems to be coming faster then I know what to deal with it and I'm supposed to be on top of it all at once. How do other captains deal with this?

Let's see if I can remember everything.

- Spock disappeared from sickbay and no one was inclined to tell me.
- Sulu let a stranger onto the ship and wasn't inclined to inform me.
- Ambassador Sarek got onto the ship and no one was inclined to tell me.
- Sulu fucked the new guy and unfortunately didn't have to tell me.
- Sulu is going to break Pavel's heart and will get an ass kicking from me.
- Something is going on with this verse's Spock, not like he'll tell me. (But I plan to try.)
- Pon farr is coming to Mr. Spock and I'm just hoping he doesn't kill me. (Won't let it kill him.)ca
- I haven't eaten yet today, and just now my stomach is inclined to remind me.
- I kind of want to spend the night again with Bones... but does he want to spend it with me?

More, when I get the chance to update the log.