Fic: A Hand in the Darkness
Title: A Hand in the Darkness
Author: sunriseinspace
Character(s): Jim Kirk / Leonard McCoy (pre-slash), George Kirk (deceased), Gwen Harding, Sam Harding, Katy Harding, Kevin Riley, Thomas Leighton
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I own nothing about Star Trek (2009), its characters or plotlines, including any recognizable dialogue.
Summary: “When I was ten years old,” Jim says, voice tight and hands clenched tighter, “I drove my dad’s antique Corvette into a quarry in Iowa. [...] Within the week I was on a shuttle to stay with my mother’s brother and his family on a relatively new colony called Tarsus IV. It was supposed to be fun... For six months, that was the happiest I’d ever been." Jim smiles wryly and shakes his head. “Obviously, it didn’t stay that way.”
WARNING: Tarsus IV story
A/N: Linger-verse, the Tarsus side story touched on briefly in Linger. Specifically, this story is set both when Jim is 11 and living with his aunt and uncle on Tarsus and after he takes the Kobayashi Maru for the first time. In other words, this is the story he tells Bones after Bones corners him about his eating/sleeping/work habits.
NOTE: In this story, as in Linger, George Kirk is dead. When Jim sees and interacts with him, he’s a spirit somehow connected with his son, allowing Jim to grow up knowing his father.
+
“When I was ten years old,” Jim says, voice tight and hands clenched tighter, “I drove my dad’s antique Corvette into a quarry in Iowa. My mom was off-planet, my brother had just run away again, and I’d had enough of my stepdad.” Bones’ eyes are dark over the table, hands still and loose around his coffee cup as he watches Jim’s face. Jim has no idea what his expression’s giving away and Bones’ face is unreadable, so he focuses on the story, tries to pretend it happened to someone else as he says the words.
It doesn’t work very well.
He wishes George were here, wishes George hadn’t convinced him he needed to do this, wishes Bones had never asked. But George was right and there is nothing like pity in Bones’ eyes, not yet, at least. Jim relaxes his hands, pushes his breakfast plate away - ignores the vague nausea he feels at the smell - settles more comfortably in his chair and fixes his gaze calmly on Bones’ face.
“Needless to say, Frank wasn’t pleased. Within the week I was on a shuttle to stay with my mother’s brother and his family on a relatively new colony called Tarsus IV. It was supposed to be fun, a break from Frank and Iowa and being ‘that Kirk kid,’ and it was. For six months, that was the happiest I’d ever been.” He swallows hard, takes a sip of the orange juice sitting next to his plate to mitigate the sudden dryness of his throat. Bones’ expression is slightly pained, fingertips turning white from where he’s moved his hands to hold his coffee cup. Jim smiles wryly and shakes his head. “Obviously, it didn’t stay that way.”
+
The first sign of something going wrong is the soldier suddenly patrolling the end of the street, plasma rifle slung over one shoulder.
Jim’s playing tag with Kevin and Katy, trying to find a good hiding place but somewhere where Kevin’ll find him eventually, when he notices him. He stops dead in the middle of the street, arms slowly lowering to hang at his sides, and watches the guard make a lazy circuit, eyes half-lidded with boredom until they settle on Jim. Then he straightens up, pulls the rifle down off his shoulder and holds it loosely in his hands, squaring his posture and purposefully canvassing the area from the street corner. Eyebrow raised at such a blatant show, Jim rolls his eyes and ducks behind Ms. Hoshi’s fence, peering at the guard through the slats occasionally but mostly waiting for Kevin to round the corner and discover him.
They play for fifteen more minutes, the guard’s posture softening when they’re out of sight and snapping back into shape whenever they appear, until Aunt Gwen calls them in for dinner. Jim pauses in the doorway and glances back at the guard, watching as he watches Jim. They stare at each other over the distance, neither moving other than to breathe, as the sun sinks down over the horizon in a stunning shower of green-tinged pinks. Just before twilight truly starts to set in, Jim nods once and ducks into the house, latching and locking the door behind him. Uncle Sam ruffles Jim’s hair as he walks into the kitchen and gathers the placesettings for the table, unable to keep the smile off his face as he helps Katy fold the napkins and line the silverware up correctly.
George’s eyes are dark and unreadable from where he stands in the corner, arms crossed over his chest as he watches his son, but Jim can’t be bothered to care.
It had made the guard nervous, to have Jim acknowledge him so blatantly. The satisfaction he feels at the unease obvious on the guy’s face lasts through dinner, through homework and telling Katy a bedtime story, through the rest of the week, until Uncle Sam tells him that, if Sadie’s litter turns out all right, he might be able to have a puppy.
At eleven years old, not much is more interesting than the prospect of getting a puppy.
+
“The guards appeared first,” he says, pulling his finger carelessly through the condensation on the outside of his juice glass. “I mean, I’d heard my aunt and uncle discussing how there’d been less food at the market recently and all, but I was eleven.” He shrugs again and looks up at Bones, whose mouth is tight at the corners.
“It got to be a game with us kids - who could freak who out first. We’d spend hours sitting on the corners, staring at the poor guy posted on our block.” He chuckles darkly (there’s a flash of blue eyes at the corner of his vision but he stays focused on his story, already knowing George won’t actually intervene - he never has, if he thought something was important for Jim). “One or two of them would do something to scatter us, but mostly they did nothing, just paced nervously from corner to corner and avoided our eyes. I got a puppy shortly after that,” he says, smiling bleakly down at the table. “Named her Carol and dragged her everywhere with me.”
The smile falls off his face slowly, melting into one of the many unnamable emotions he was left with after Tarsus.
“God, I loved that dog.”
+
As the months pass and the guards remain stationed on the street corners, the kids in the neighborhood get bored and move on to more entertaining afternoon pursuits. At six months old, Carol’s adorably gangly, with floppy ears and awkwardly huge paws that trip her up more often than they get her where she wants to go, and Jim’s taken to dragging her around with him wherever he goes.
“Nice dog, Kirk,” he hears behind him as he’s walking Carol one afternoon and he turns to grin at the speaker, stumbling slightly as Carol tries to continue forward and is thwarted by the short span of her leash. She quickly understands that Jim’s distracted and flops down in the Tarsus dust, pink tongue lolling out of her mouth shamelessly as she tracks birds with quick flicks of her eyes.
“Shut up, Thom!” Jim calls back good-naturedly, waving vigorously at the older boy. “Hey! Did’ja get that new comic your dad promised you?” he asks, fiddling with the seams on Carol’s leash.
“Yeah! I’ll swing by later an’ drop it off, ‘kay?”
Jim grins and stumbles backward, almost overbalancing as Carol jumps to her feet and lurches forward a step when a bird flies too close. He waves at Thom again and spins around, launching into a full-tilt run from sheer happiness, Carol barking wildly as she keeps pace beside him.
They play for hours in the meadow near Gwen and Sam’s house, Jim throwing tennis balls and stray sticks that Carol chases with endless enthusiasm, clouds of dust kicking up under their running feet. Once he’s thoroughly worn out his throwing arm, Jim flops down in the grass, panting lightly as Carol follows suit and curls up next to him. The sky is a brilliant blue overhead and, if Jim ignores the just-slightly too purple tint above him, it feels like any late summer day in Iowa.
“You go to sleep there, you’ll be red as a lobster later,” George comments from somewhere above him, a smile in his voice.
“But I’m tired,” Jim says, whining just a little. He’d run from their street here, with Carol tugging him along behind her, and spent hours playing under the warm sun - he’s more than ready to be entirely immobile for a little while.
“Hmm,” George hums, reaching down to run a hand over Carol’s head. Her tongue lolls out in a friendly, doggy-smile as she shifts to look up at him, her wise brown eyes trained securely on his face. Jim’s still confused by Carol’s ability to see George, but he suspects George doesn’t know why Carol can see him either, so he doesn’t ask the question. Instead, he lays there in the grass and tries to ignore the sour twist in his stomach as George scratches Carol’s head and the dog leans easily into the touch.
“Jim. Jimmy.” Jim opens his eyes and rolls his head to look at his father, blinking blearily in the sunlight. George smiles indulgently and shakes his head. “Seriously, don’t fall asleep here - you’ll make yourself sick. C’mon, I wanna show you somethin’.”
With a put-upon sigh, Jim crawls to his feet, groaning theatrically as he slips his shoes back on and follows George over to the treeline. George stoops down and points a finger at an oddly shaped plant, with bright purple-green, triangular leaves. “See this, Jimmy? Looks funny, I know, but it tastes pretty good. Kinda like minty cabbage. Pick a leaf and try it,” he instructs and, while Jim is leery of just arbitrarily eating random plants (Sam and Gwen had given him a long, stern lecture the day after he arrived, explaining that not everything had been tested for compatibility with humans, so he needed to be extra careful, especially with Katy), he trusts that George hasn’t led him wrong thus far and really wouldn’t seek to poison him now.
Sure enough, the leaves of the odd little plant do have a kind of minty flavor, unusual but not unpleasant. Jim grins up at George and snags another leaf, nibbling slowly at the edges. And when George points into the copse, Jim is just able to see several of the plants through the shadows, often nestled at the bases of the larger trees.
Several feet away, Carol yips and nosedives into the grass, flushing out a pair of bird-like creatures and chasing them down until Jim manages to grab a hold of her collar and reattach her leash.
+
“There was so much to explore, so much to learn about the colony,” Jim says wonderingly, shaking his head a little. “I spent as much spare time as possible poking through the wooded areas around my uncle and aunt’s house. There were tons of new plants, a lot of which were edible, something I learned...through trial-and-error.” He chews on the corner of one lip. So much of Tarsus involves George and Jim can’t tell Bones about him - he’s pretty sure, from past occurrences, that not much else’ll send the well-meaning doctor after a tricorder faster than Jim saying he can see his long-dead father. He takes a deep breath, resigning himself to editing - just a little - what he says.
“Of all of my friends, I was the one who best knew the layout of the colony and the land around it. We’d spend hours playing hide-and-seek in the woods or tag out in the fields. And Mom and Sam’s dad had been in Starfleet and had taught his son a lot of camping-type, wilderness skills, which Sam decided to teach me, what with the planet being as new and empty as it was. Plus, he and Aunt Gwen were hoping to expand their family and I’m pretty sure he wanted a son so bad he could taste it.” Jim grins, a quick flash of teeth that prompts the same from Bones. “Katy was fun and all, but very definitely a girl.”
+
“Ew, Daddy, there’s bugs!” Katy squeals, dancing sideways and pointing as a centipede-type insect crawled sedately past her foot. Sam chuckles and swings her up onto his shoulders, bouncing her lightly as he and Jim continue farther through the forest.
“Sure there are, baby. We’re ‘in the wild’,” he growls playfully, tickling behind her knees so that she laughs and squirms on her perch. “We’re ‘sploring, right, Jimmy?” he asks, grinning brightly at his nephew as Jim negotiates his way over a fallen tree.
Jim smiles back at him and crashes through the underbrush, trusting his uncle to be able to follow his tracks, if not the ruckus he’s causing, and not get lost. Sometimes it catches Jim off-guard, how much alike Sam and Winona look. Most of the time, it isn’t any big deal but when he grins like that - about the only expression of happiness Winona was able to give her youngest son, and only rarely at that - their relationship is undeniable. Smiling again and snatching up a long, sturdy stick to poke at things with, Jim pushes away the unhappy memories and focuses on where he’s going.
It’s one of the first weekends Sam’s had free in about a month and Jim’s finally got a chance to show his uncle how much of the area he knows, which Sam had decided was the perfect time for them to go camping. Jim’s excitement knows no bounds, even with finicky little five-year-old Katy tagging along, and he careens around the forest with as much ease as ever, despite the not-inconsiderable weight of the pack on his back. Sam had let him choose their campsite, as long as he could point out a general approximation of where it was on their map before they set out, and he can’t wait to get them there.
Using his stick, he slashes through a couple of long-fronded bushes and nearly jumps out of his skin when he steps forward and almost walks face-first into what’s just about the biggest spiderweb he’s ever seen.
“Holy crap!” he says, loudly, gooseflesh breaking out over his skin as he steps backward, away from the web.
“Language, Jim!” he hears distantly behind him, his uncle’s habitually calm admonishment rolling off his back as it always does (Gwen and Sam had been trying to, since he arrived on-planet, gently address and correct certain behavioral flaws he’d developed living with Frank, foul language being one of them) - he listens to them, of course, but George’s disapproval does more to curb his attitude than anyone else’s ever has.
“That’s gotta be one big friggin’ spider,” Jim mutters under his breath, warily circling the web, hands caught in his pack’s straps as he peers at the construction.
“Language, Jimmy,” George says as Jim rounds the tree supporting one side of the web and Jim jumps again. George chuckles and crosses his arms, leaning against a nearby tree as his son glares at him.
“You scared me,” he accuses.
“Shoulda listened to your uncle - Katy can hear you and she doesn’t need to hear that,” George comments mildly and Jim feels himself flush, suitably chastened. “Spider’s over here, by the way,” George points and Jim follows his finger to the insect’s hiding place.
It is a large spider, easily the size of a Terran camel spider, and the same mottled brown-black of the tree trunk. Jim cringes and steps well away from the tree, skin rolling in a full-body shudder. He’s not afraid of bugs, not like Katy, but this thing is as big or bigger than his hand, not that he’s getting close enough to find out, no sir. As he watches, it takes a wary step forward, legs reaching out and feeling along some pre-decided path before hauling its body in that direction. Jim shudders again and unconsciously reaches up to scratch at his neck, unnerved by the creature. Face twisting in distaste, he turns his back on the tree and moves back toward his own path, more than ready to set up camp.
“You know, those things aren’t poisonous,” George remarks, stepping neatly around trees and bushes as he walks with Jim (he misses one once, when he glances up to look at Jim, and Jim sniggers as he moves right through it).
“That’s a surprise,” Jim replies, wanting more than anything to not be talking about the spider, but willing to see where George is going with this. “You’d think something that big’d be deadly.”
“Nah, it’s harmless. Just eats smaller bugs’n builds giant webs.” George grins slyly and pauses, waiting until Jim’s stopped and turned to face him before continuing. “They’re a great source of nutrition.”
“Oh, gross!” Jim cries, gagging a little as he realizes what George means. “That’s so nasty!” His stomach rolls again as he pictures anyone eating that thing - or any other bugs.
“Hey, when you’re hungry...” George is still grinning but his eyes are strangely solemn. Jim’s too preoccupied by the disgusting imagery to notice.
“I’ll never be hungry enough to eat bugs!” Jim vows before running ahead to the clearing they’d been trekking toward, slinging his pack to the ground and starting to dig the pit Sam’d told him they’d need for a fire that evening.
George watches him go, hands in his pockets and his expression one of concentration turned inward. He waits until Sam and Katy reach the clearing and start helping set up camp, then sighs and turns away, melting into the forest shadows.
+
“The guards patrolled the street corners for four months, changing shifts three times a day. They became part of life, you know, ‘hey, how’re the kids, how’s Sam’s job doin’, d’you see the new guy patrolling the end of the block?’” Jim shrugs and takes a sip of his orange juice. “It was no big thing.”
He drifts into silence, staring at the tabletop as Bones gathers up their dishes, stacking them neatly on the tray he’d brought them in on, and pours himself another cup of coffee. He settles back into his seat across from Jim, slowly makes his way through half his cup, then clears his throat.
“So, what changed?” he asks, voice husky and low around the rim of his mug.
“Didn’t rain for a month straight. Food started getting lower than usual, the scientists all started pulling longer hours in their labs doing research. Kodos’ weekly messages to the colony decreased to once a month. Little things. Nothing you’d really notice at first; shoot, Thom, Kevin, Katy, and I had no idea what was going on ‘til things were really bad. But, looking back, y’have to wonder how the hell no one saw it coming.”
+
“Hey, Uncle Sam! The comm won’t connect!” Jim calls, hanging over the back of the desk chair as he watches the doorway for his uncle. Using a foot, he swings the chair back and forth, letting the momentum tug his body in different directions, while the computer chimes softly behind him and flashes its error message. Jim pulls a face and turns to plop back into the chair when his uncle doesn’t immediately come when called.
“Now, I know you know enough electronics to rule out the basic causes, Jim,” George says, appearing next to the desk. He grins at his son and points a finger at the monitor. “Give me three reasons it might not be working.”
“Hmm,” Jim hums, swaying the chair back and forth as he thinks. “Network card might not be active, might be burned out, or...”
“Or?” George prompts.
“Or... it’s...” Jim flounders for an answer, feeling the tips of his ears tint pink as it evades him.
“Did someone log it into the colony’s network this morning?” George asks, blue eyes sparkling.
“Oh!” Jim jumps, rolling his eyes and sticking out his tongue as he pulls up the computer’s command prompt and starts checking for causes. “It’s found the network card, so that’s not the problem... And Aunt Gwen logged in this morning before heading to her lab, so that’s not it, either. Huh.” Jim sits back, staring at the screen. He turns to look up at George, who’s moved to lean over the desk to watch Jim work. “What else could it be?”
“Well, try this...”
Twenty minutes later, Jim finishes tightening the last of the CPU case’s screws. He slides the tool back into his uncle’s tech kit and replaces it in the drawer, making sure it’s back exactly where it had been before so as to avoid a lecture about messing with the computer later. He climbs back into the chair and boots up the computer, logs in with the credentials he’d been issued upon arriving on Tarsus, and tries to connect again. He and George both watch in silence, Jim holding his breath in anticipation, until the error message flashes up again. Jim heaves a gusty sigh and slumps back in the chair.
“I don’t know what the problem is,” George muses, frowning at the screen.
The front door opens and closes and Katy’s bright voice fills the entryway as she tells her father about the game she and her friends had played at school that day. Sam responds occasionally as they move through the house, then Katy squeals a giggle before thundering off to her bedroom, laughter trailing behind her. Sam’s still smiling as he steps into the family room, though it dims a little as Jim turns to greet him.
“Uncle Sam, the comm won’t connect and it’s the thirteenth and I’m supposed to ‘call Mom and if I miss it, I won’t get another chance until next month,” Jim explains in one breath, ignoring George’s chuckles behind him.
“Well, then,” Sam murmurs, leaning down over the desk to poke at the keyboard. He runs through a series of commands, checks everything Jim’d already checked on, nudges Jim out of the way and looks over the hardware to make sure everything’s as it should be. Jim heaves a long-suffering sigh and rolls his eyes at George, but doesn’t try to tell his uncle he’s done all this already - he and George agree that Sam’ll only find out about Jim’s computer prowess when absolutely necessary. “I wonder what’s the problem,” he muses, staring pensively at the monitor.
“What’re we gonna do?”
“Wait here, I’m gonna go see if the Leightons have access,” Sam tells him, then leaves the room.
“I don’t think the Leightons can connect, either,” George says, frowning.
“Why?”
“I’m not sure.” George’s eyes are distant and troubled as he stares blankly over Jim’s shoulder. “I thought there was more time,” he murmurs, almost to himself but loud enough for Jim to hear.
“What?”
George opens his mouth to answer (probably to deflect, judging by the expression on his face), but Sam comes back into the room, looking confused.
“Thom said they haven’t been able to connect all day, that they’ve just been getting the error message, too.” He stares at the console screen, frowning like George had. “I’m not sure anyone can connect.”
“What?”
But Aunt Gwen comes in the front door, then, carrying her usual stack of PADDs and a bag of groceries, calling out greetings and questions about the day and Sam doesn’t say anything else to Jim, who worries about his inability to call his mom but is promptly distracted by other things.
+
They’ve been sitting in silence for the last ten minutes, Jim working up the nerve to continue his narration and Bones just waiting patiently for Jim. A nervous sweat’s broken out over the back of Jim’s neck and the palms of his hands, but his face feels numb and he’s not quite sure he’s actually speaking aloud when he finally opens his mouth.
“We went a month without the comms before the first...incident,” he says, twitching his head just enough to relieve some of the tension building in his shoulders. “Rainfall averages were down to about 25 percent of normal and half the crops on the planet were failing for lack of water while the other half succumbed to a fungus. There was a ration system in place, allowing a certain allotment of food per person per household, with the hope that the next shipment of supplies would bring some relief.” He swallows and runs his finger through the condensation his juice glass has left on the tabletop. “We didn’t know that the comm blackout was orchestrated by Kodos or that the supply ships had been turned away, likely told that we’d managed to get our agriculture up and running smoothly and were no longer in need of the quarterly food shipments.”
Bones’ fingers tense where they’re laced together in front of him, in understanding or awful anticipation Jim’s not quite sure. He is sure that his breakfast is rapidly souring in his stomach, as he thinks about those last few months (God, was it really only a few months?).
“So, when one family matriarch, and then another, and another, was given only a portion of what the markets had been allowing her household, a panic swept the colony - people had finally started to realize there may be a real problem.” He looks up at Bones and whatever the doctor sees in his eyes makes him blanch, eyes widening with the first hints of honest horror.
“Five hundred people died in the first riot, when the mob rushed the food stands at the market and the guards on patrol followed their orders to fire on the crowd-”
+
“Hey, Jimmy,” Aunt Gwen murmurs, running gentle fingers through his bangs as he blinks awake and peers blearily up at her. “Just letting you know you can sleep in today - school’s cancelled for a little while, okay, kiddo? Go back to sleep,” she whispers and Jim’s eyes slide shut once more.
She doesn’t tell him school is cancelled because three of the ten teachers for his level were killed in the marketplace riot or that, because of that and the colony’s continued unrest, all lessons are on hold indefinitely. She just stays by his side, combing her fingers through his hair until he sighs and falls asleep again, entirely unaware of George, standing sentry in the corner, his brows drawn in worry as he watches over his son.
+
“-two hundred or so in the second-”
+
“Uncle Sam! I’m takin’ Carol out to the field!” Jimmy calls as he clips the leash to Carol’s collar, giggling as he pushes her furry muzzle out of his face and wipes her enthusiastic kisses off his cheeks.
“No, Jim!” And there’s a sharp note in Sam’s voice, making him sound more like Winona than he has yet. Jim rocks back on his heels, staring as Sam comes to the kitchen doorway. Carol whines impatiently but Jim hushes her, studying the expression on his uncle’s face for a clue.
“Why?” he asks suspiciously, intuiting more than most eleven-year-olds might.
“Just-Jim, it’s-” Jim watches his uncle try to explain without actually saying anything that might upset his nephew. He sighs, shoulders slumping. “I’d really rather you not go out today,” Sam settles on finally, staring at Jim with pleading eyes.
Jim considers for a second, eyes flicking briefly from his uncle to where his father’s standing silently just inside the kitchen doorway, trying to hide an unwontedly sober expression. “Okay,” he agrees, unclipping Carol’s leash and turning to launch her tennis ball down the hallway.
“Hey,” Sam offers, expression still somehow both terrified and calm, “there’re some books in the chest in my room you might like. You’re not too much younger than I was when I first read them.” He smiles tentatively, then with more feeling when Jim grins back at him. “Go on, scamp. Just don’t tell your aunt I’m lettin’ you read ‘em - you know how careful she is about keeping real books in good condition.” He grins again as Jim runs off to the bedrooms and turns to head back to fixing dinner.
+
“-and no less than seventy-five in the last, though we were never completely sure exactly how many died.”
+
He’s curled up under the kitchen window, the dried grass prickling through his pants as he devotes his attention to the book in his hands. It’s late afternoon, the greeny-pink sun just starting to slant through the trees along the backyard, and he’s trying to make the best of his aunt’s grudgingly allowing him outside for the first time in ages while she fixes dinner. He turns another page, desperate to know if Stefen’s going reach help in time to save Vanyel from Leareth and his army, and doesn’t even slow his reading as his aunt and uncle’s voices infringe on his concentration and threaten to distract him.
“-Dolli Leighton said she hasn’t heard from Tald’is or Amrl since the last riot. She’s terrified they were involved somehow, said they’d all planned to head to the stores together but Thom jammed the trash compacter and she’d had to put off the trip to fix it. Have you-”
“No, nothing,” Sam answers his wife’s stilted question in an undertone. Jim blinks hard and shifts his eyes back to reread the last sentence, frowning in concentration as he tries to block them out. Sitting next to him, George tilts his head up to stare at the open window above them, blue eyes troubled as he listens. “But Jack and Annie haven’t been at work, either. Maybe they’ve just been busy?” Sam posits worriedly and a dish clatters on the countertop, as though he can’t stop his hands shaking slightly.
Jim flips a page and reads on, racing through the words and doing his best to ignore the conversation over his head - he’s pages from the end of the book and wants to be done before dinner, so he can move on to the next trilogy his uncle had stored in his old cedar chest. George is a silent presence at his side, much like he has been recently, so only the conversation in the kitchen threatens to disturb him and Jim cares nothing about his aunt and uncle’s worries.
“I don’t think so,” Gwen sighs, her voice wavering. There’s a silence broken only by the birds outside and the soft sizzle of something cooking on the stove. “Somehow, I think things are going to get a lot worse before they get better,” she whispers, her voice barely audible through the window, but Jim’s had enough. Too distracted and too intent on finishing his book, he moves to sit by the back door, where he can’t hear his aunt and uncle talking and can finally concentrate.
George stays under the window, with his head tipped back and his eyes closed, face tight with pain and fear.
+
“A month later, Kodos called an assembly at the town square. My family and most of our neighbors were on the lists of those called to assemble.” He shrugs and tries to arrange his expression into something resembling calm acceptance of the past, but his muscles won’t work right and the words won’t stop coming.
“We had no idea what was going on. I mean, things were bad but they didn’t seem too bad, you know? Aunt Gwen and Uncle Sam were still able to get us plenty to eat, were even able to help make sure Kevin and-and Thom’s families had enough food. We-the guards patrolling our neighborhood never seemed particularly stressed or anxious, we- There was no clue,” he blurts, hands starting to shake. He tucks them away under his thighs and looks up at Bones, desperately needing to see that there isn’t blame in the doctor’s eyes.
“Jim, I doubt anyone knew what was going to happen,” Bones says, his voice as steady and sure as his hands as he reaches out to grip Jim’s shoulder. Jim swallows harshly and nods jerkily.
+
“Survival depends on drastic measures. Your continued existence represents a threat to the well-being of society. Your lives mean slow death to the more valued members of the colony. Therefore, I have no alternative but to sentence you to death. Your execution is so ordered.”
There’s silence in the square, a ringing emptiness of bafflement and confusion. Surely he didn’t mean-
But then the first guard steps forward and raises his weapon. The high-pitched whine of the weapon charging splits the silence, hanging in the air for a moment before-
-all hell breaks loose, people running and screaming, the smell of ozone and singed meat and a heavy copper scent unlike anything Jim’s ever smelled before in his life but recognizes almost instantly-
-he runs, Katy’s hand tight in his, his aunt’s panicked voice driving him into the thick of the crowd, one last squeeze of Sam’s hand on his shoulder bolstering him as he tugs Katy after him, never letting go-
-he sees George in flashes and glimpses, just before he gets a hand on Kevin’s collar, right after catching sight of Thom Leighton’s bleach-white face as the older boy hefts two younger children into his arms and takes off running-
-George is right next to him, yelling in his ear, and Jim realizes what he’s saying just in time to duck and haul Katy and Kevin down beside him, barely dodging the phaser fire that sweeps over their heads and cuts down the people that’d been behind them-
-they shove through the thinning crowds, duck behind benches and streetlights, run hell-for-leather until they reach an empty street, then another, sobbing their grief and terror as they never stop running-
They run until Katy collapses in exhaustion, gasping for breath in wheezes and moans. Jim snatches her into his arms and she’s much lighter than he expects, light enough to carry down one more street, then another. They make it to the schoolyard and George is there, face pale and eyes frantic as he motions for Jim to head into the building. It’s cool and cavernous inside, empty and echoing eerily as they jog through hallways, not stopping until they reach the storage room and manage to wedge the door shut behind them.
They sit there for hours, while Katy sobs herself to sleep in Jim’s lap and Kevin folds himself tightly into Jim’s side. George paces like an angry lion in front of the doors and Jim watches him until the back-and-forth cadence of his steps lulls him into an exhausted doze.
Jim wakes an indeterminate time later to someone scratching and whispering at the door. Shoving a whimpering Katy at Kevin, Jim moves to press his ear to the wood and listens, trying to hear over the pounding of his heart.
“Please, is anyone in there? I’ve got kids here and I-”
“It’s Thom,” George says and Jim quickly opens the door to reveal his friend, surrounded by a small (so small, there’s so few of them) group of children, none older than Jim himself.
They crowd together in the store room, bodies tight against each other not because of a lack of space but to give and receive comfort and a meager reassurance that they’re not alone in this nightmare.
+
“We stayed there for three days, Thom or I occasionally slipping out to find food or see what was going on. We were the oldest - an eleven-year-old and a sixteen-year-old doing their best to keep themselves and twelve children alive. God, we wouldn’t’ve survived the first night if it weren’t for-” George “-instinct.”
Bones’ eyes are dark with pain, his own from listening and Jim’s from having to remember. Jim closes his own eyes to block out Bones’ stricken expression and Katy’s face swims up behind his eyelids. He opens them again and focuses on the flowering bush growing outside the window.
“We left the school four days after the massacre. We found a few old carisaks in a couple of the classrooms and stuffed ‘em with as much food and supplies as we could find and took to the forests. Katy and a couple of the younger kids hated that,” he says, mouth twisting at the bittersweet memory of their complaints, “but it was the safest place for us and I knew them as well as the back of my hand. We stayed there for a month, sheltered in the trees and caves and living hand-to-mouth, trying to avoid the soldiers patrolling the streets and the wildlife whose home we’d invaded.”
+
“Jimmy, I’m hungry,” Sarai whispers softly, tugging at his shirtsleeve. Jim smiles down at her and takes her hand in his, pain and panic roiling in his stomach at how thin and cold her fingers are, despite the heat.
“Okay, Sarai, let’s find some food.” He looks up and briefly studies the faces of the kids nearest him. “Kevin, Da’lin, come help me see if we can find a snack.” The younger boys’ faces light up at the prospect of food and they jump to their feet, wobbling slightly with dizziness.
They find a shrub laden with berries and immediately start filling the little plastic pails with the fruits while Jim keeps a watchful eye out on the other kids left in the clearing. Katy’s playing in the dirt with Naara and Natil, while Jem, Anders, and Querna play tag around a couple of nearby trees. Thom, Joron, and Michale had all gone off to find shelter for the night, each gathering twigs and sticks for their little fire tonight.
“No, Jim, not that one, this one,” he hears George say and turns to see Da’lin’s moved on to another shrub and started pulling berries off the branches. Even from where he’s standing several feet away, Jim can see that the little red fruits are different from what they’d started out gathering. “See the berries? No black spots, right? The black spots mean they’re poisonous. Those little red ones, those’ll hold you for a little while, okay?”
“Hey, Da’l, wait up!” Jim hurries over and quickly sorts out the handful of spotted berries in Da’lin’s bucket. “These’ll make you sick, bud, okay? We can’t eat these, only the ones without spots,” he instructs, smiling fondly into Da’lin’s purple-blue eyes to take the sting away from his words. The little boy nods vigorously and runs off to another, safer bush.
Jim sighs and leans against a nearby tree, realizing how close they’d come to catastrophe. He glances around, keeping tabs on his kids, and catches sight of a huge spiderweb strung between a pair of leafless saplings. He shudders and edges away, feeling the hair on his arms and the back of his neck rise as he remembers the flippant vow he made on that camping trip all those months ago. Squaring his shoulders, he heads off to help the boys gather their berries, still hoping he’ll be able to keep that vow.
+
“Jim,” Thom says one night, quietly so that they don’t wake the younger kids, “what’re we doing?”
Jim’s exhausted - they’d been on the move since before sunrise and stopped only after the sun had long set, except for small food breaks - but he can’t seem to find sleep, his eyes sandpapery and burning as he stares into the tiny fire they built to sleep around. He shivers, pulling the overlarge sweatshirt tighter around his shoulders, and leans his head down to rest his forehead on his raised knees.
“I don’t know, Thom.” He doesn’t, not what to say or what to do; he’s been relying as much on George as on pure dumb luck and expects one, the other, or both to fail him any moment now. “My mom’s back on Earth. I haven’t talked to her for months. Maybe she’ll...” he trails off, remembering so many years of absent indifference and vague hostility - there’s no guarantee she’ll do anything, not to his jaded mind.
“Starfleet’ll save us, right, Jim?” Thom asks hopefully, sounding as young as Kevin, and Jim doesn’t have the heart to deny him.
“Sure. There’s probably someone on their way now,” he answers, injecting as much cheer as possible into the words, trying to make himself believe them.
“Jim!” Jim’s head shoots up and he stares at George’s strained face, reading the urgency in the stark lines around his father’s blue eyes. “Jim, wake the kids, I hear someone coming, you’ll have to run for it.” Jim’s exhausted but on his feet in an instant, kicking dirt over their little fire and whispering harshly for Thom to get the kids up.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, already moving to shake Kevin and Sarai awake.
“Someone’s coming,” Jim answers shortly.
“Carry the littler ones if you need to. Come on, kiddo,” George urges, staring out into the distance, hand stretched in the opposite direction to indicate where the kids should head.
Jim hauls Naara up into his arms and slings her around to ride piggy-back, while Natil reaches and scrambles up to rest his weight on Jim’s right hip, leaving Jim’s left hand free to grab Katy’s hand. Thom’s similarly draped, one child on his back and one on his hip, and the kids still on their feet grab their bags and take off in the direction Jim points, crawling as quietly as possible through the bushes and underbrush.
They melt silently away from their camp, spreading out just enough to not cause to much noise but also not lose track of each other. Less than fifty yards away from the camp, Jim hears raised voices behind him and picks up a little more speed, dragging Katy behind him. Silent tears gleam on her cheeks after she stumbles once and nearly drags them all down, but they keep going, panic and instinct driving them like wild things, trying to find safety.
Even when they finally clamber into the tiny caverns of a cave-pocked hillside and tuck themselves into the crevices, no one goes back to sleep.
+
“George,” Jim whispers, voice harsh over the sounds of wildlife as he stands by himself in the clearing. “George, I need your help.”
No sooner than he’s said the words, George’s there, as calm and unruffled as ever, though his eyes flick around the clearing with military efficiency, something Jim recognizes from watching the soldiers from various hiding spots in the forest.
“What’s up, kiddo?”
Jim sighs and leans against a tree. He feels perpetually exhausted and constantly hungry - he takes the first and last watches of every night and only allows himself half of the amount of food the others get, the other half of his meals going to whichever child is looking hungrier at that moment.
“We need water,” he says flatly, vision swimming slightly as he pulls himself upright and steps toward his father.
George heads off into the forest, passing just enough unique plants and trees that Jim can find his way back to Thom and the kids later. Five minutes after they started, Jim hears water and takes off toward it, falling to his knees at the edge of the smallish pond.
“Hey, hey, wait,” George says, leaning down next to him and pointing. “See the cloud in the water, Jim? You can’t drink it, it’s been fouled. See how the plants at the edges died?” And Jim wants to cry when he realizes his father’s right, when he peers more closely into the water and sees the garbage and rotting things sunk at the bottom.
He stumbles away from the water and lets himself collapse backward into the underbrush, crushed leaves and tiny plants cushioning his weight. He’s so tired he can barely keep his eyes open, grief-stricken from the loss of his aunt and uncle, and near-sick with the constant panic in the bottom of his stomach. He’s eleven-years-old, he isn’t supposed to have twelve kids depending on him, isn’t supposed to be the one who holds Katy at night until she cries herself to sleep, isn’t supposed to be the most responsible, the one even Thom looks to for guidance. He’s supposed to be spending his days in school and spending his afternoons playing with his dog, with his aunt and uncle to guard and guide him until the end of his mom’s current tour, when he’s supposed to go back to Earth and stay with her.
“Jim?” George asks hesitantly, leaning over to run a hand across Jim’s forehead. Jim blinks at the odd way the sunlight seems to shine through George’s hand and turns to look at his father. His face is compassionate, his eyes tender, and his soft smile hurts to look at, but at least it’s not Thom or Kevin or Katy or any of the kids begging him for more than he can give. “Come on, I know where you can get something to drink, go get the kids.”
+
“Eventually, of course, we couldn’t run any farther. We were too exhausted, undernourished, grieving, inexperienced - it’s a wonder we made it as long as we did.” Jim looks away from the window and closes his eyes, a negative image of the bush outside glowing briefly behind his eyelids.
“Jim-” Bones starts but Jim speaks over him. He’s not stopping now, no matter that Bones is probably just trying to save him from the worst memories. He has to get them out, has a feeling they’ll do infinitely more damage now, half-exposed as they are, than if he uncovers them.
He worries at a hangnail on his thumb as he starts to speak again, scratching at the loose skin absentmindedly as he stares into the distance.
“We were to be taken to Kodos. The guards chained us together and forced us to go through the town square. God, they-Everyone was still there, right where they fell, the sun baking them into husks of bodies strewn like dolls through the streets...”
+
He can hear Katy crying behind him, can hear one of the little ones stumble and fall, retching pitifully at the sight. He wants to gather them into his arms, hide their eyes and pull them away from this atrocity, but his hands are bound and he’s so weak, knees barely able to keep him on his feet.
The sergeant in charge of the group that found them takes a tight grip on Jim’s arm and hauls him forward, forcing everyone behind Jim to stumble and almost fall. Jim’s chained at the head of the group - he wouldn’t let anyone else take the blame for this, even when Thom stepped forward to do so. George’s eyes are grim and his mouth’s a bloodless white line in his face but he doesn’t try to make Jim back down. The guard’s glee at finding them is more than enough to tell Jim they’re in for a world of trouble when Kodos gets a hold of them and Jim refuses to let anyone else get hurt.
“Come on, punk. The governor wants a word with you,” the soldier nearest Jim sneers and takes a handful of Jim’s hair, dragging him toward Kodos’ mansion.
Chains clank behind him as he shuffles forward and he hears Kevin cry out behind him, demanding they let Jim go. Gritting his teeth, he keeps step with the guard, hating the way it drags all the kids forward. Through the burn in his scalp and the ache in his shoulders from the bindings keeping his wrists behind his back, he’s glad Thom managed to get himself shoved to the back of the line, with Naara and Sarai directly in front of him - from there, he might be able to do something to keep them from being dragged by their wrists through the gore in the streets.
He keeps his eyes up as much as possible, doesn’t want to risk seeing his aunt or uncle among the piles of bodies, but something to the side catches his attention and his eyes automatically swing to take it in. He slows slightly, before another jerk of his hair sends him stumbling forward again, and feels his stomach roil in sick grief as he figures out what the smaller pile of bodies off to the side actually is - the colony’s house pets. He chokes on a sudden surge of bile and tears when he sees flashes of golden-blonde fur, dropping his eyes shut and blindly following the hand in his hair.
By the time the guards drop him at Kodos’ feet, he’s mostly numb inside though, when two guards drag Kevin off in an effort to make Jim talk and another lays into him with an old-fashioned, raw-hide whip, he fights tooth and nail, until he can’t fight anymore.
The kids’ screaming haunts his dreams for years.
+
Jim shrugs and laces his fingers together, raising his eyes to Bones’ face. Two tears have escaped from the iron-hold he’s trying to keep on his emotions, but he doesn’t try to rub them away or hide them. He’s not ashamed or anything, just protective of his kids still. And of the marks, both physical and psychological, Tarsus left on him, which is why he tries to keep as much of his involvement with the colony hidden as possible.
Bones’ own eyes are damp and his voice is hoarse when he speaks. “Jim-”
“Starfleet arrived two weeks later and pulled us out of Kodos’ prisons. Five of our group survived, myself included; starvation and exposure took the others, the younger ones mostly. Thom survived - he’s a researcher over on Planet Q, developing hardy grains and studying meteorological shifts. Said he wanted to make sure there wasn’t another Tarsus in the future. Kevin-didn’t make it.” He bites off anything else that might come out - Jim admitting he could see one dead person might’ve turned out okay, but two would likely cross some sort of line.
“What about Katy?” Bones asks, his voice quiet and raw as he studies Jim with solemn hazel eyes.
“Katy-” Jim’s voice cracks and he has to swallow down the lump that suddenly rises in his throat. “There was so much confusion after the Excalibur arrived. She was sick and I’m not sure-” He stops and takes a breath. “The name Katy Harding never showed on any of the survivor lists,” he says, voice cracking again, and clears his throat.
+
“Please, I just need to find my-my sister,” Jim begs, catching on to uniform sleeves and trying to hold onto arms, anything to make someone listen to him. He can barely sit upright in the bed, but he has to know Katy’s okay. “Please!”
“Calm down, son,” a voice says as someone finally stops at his bed. He’s tallish, older, with a commanding presence that Jim finds instantly reassuring. “What’s the matter?”
“Please, sir, I need to know if my sister’s on board,” Jim says again, trying for every advantage to find Katy, even shifting the relationship from cousin to sister. “Please, she’s just five years old and she was sick, I-”
“Alright, alright,” the man soothes, turning to flag down a nurse and ask for a PADD. “What’s her name?”
“Katy, Katy Harding,” Jim answers quickly, trying to lean over enough to see the PADD’s screen himself.
There’s several minutes of relative silence in the noisy MedBay while the query runs. Jim finds he can hardly breathe, waiting for an answer. Finally, the PADD chimes and the older man looks up, eyes grave as he shifts to perch on the side of Jim’s bed.
“Son, I-I’m sorry, but there’s no one by that name been picked up. Is it possible she...”
But Jim doesn’t hear anymore. Numb, unable to pull together a thought, he curls over in the bed into the fetal position, wrapping thin arms around equally thin legs under the covers. After a time, a gentle hand settles briefly on his shoulder and the bed shifts as the officer leaves, but Jim can’t bring himself to care, even when a nurse comes over shortly thereafter and presses a hypo against his neck, running soothing hands through his too-long hair until the sedative kicks in and he drifts off to sleep.
The next day, he sees Kevin again - looking as young and healthy and mischievous as he’d been when Jim first arrived at Tarsus - and the little boy follows Jim until they make it back to Earth, a meager consolation after all he’s lost.
+
“I still don’t know if she survived. I think I like it better this way, though. Not knowing means there’s a chance she’s still alive, happy and healthy, as beautiful as Aunt Gwen and as smart as Uncle Sam.” He shrugs again and clears his throat.
“So I went back to live with Mom and Frank. And, I mean, it wasn’t great, but it was... it was okay, I guess.” And he hates how that sounds but can’t do anything to change it.
“Jim-” Bones starts, reaching out to Jim but that’s the end of Jim’s endurance.
“Anyway, that’s what happened,” he rushes out, shoving back out of his chair and to his feet, hands in his hair as he paces away from the table. “I’ve, uh, I-I’ve got a class this afternoon, I need to get going, I, um, I’ll talk to you later, Bones, okay?” he tosses over his shoulder as he runs for the door.
+
He avoids his room for the rest of the day, hanging out at the gym and hiding in the back of the library until well after midnight. Finally, when he can’t keep his eyes from crossing in exhaustion and feels like he’s going to collapse, he heads back to his dorm, too tired even to be surprised that Bones is waiting for him anyway.
“What, Bones?” he asks on a sigh, shrugging out of his jacket and throwing himself down on his bed. He mashes his face into the pillow and tries to ignore his best friend.
He hasn’t seen George at all except for this morning. It bothers him, a little, but he figures George probably understands that dealing with Tarsus and his dead-not-dead father all at once are probably too many ghosts in one go, even for someone used to them. He hopes George’ll be back tomorrow, though - nowadays, he gets twitchy when George is gone too long.
He realizes he’s doing a superlative job ignoring Bones only when he jolts out of a doze to the touch of a hand on his shoulder. Soothing fingers run through his hair, lulling him back into that half-aware, almost-dreaming state. And still Bones says nothing, good or bad, inane or noteworthy. He’s just there, a calm, comforting presence at the edge of the bed, and as he starts to fall fully asleep, Jim wonders why he ever feared Bones’ reaction to his past.
+
The next morning, there’s a note pinned to the refrigerator.
It’s okay, it reads, in Bones’ distinctive neat-but-scrawly handwriting.
“Toldja,” George whispers in his ear and he disappears before Jim can turn to look at him. “It’s not a bad thing to let someone in, not when they really care.”
Author: sunriseinspace
Character(s): Jim Kirk / Leonard McCoy (pre-slash), George Kirk (deceased), Gwen Harding, Sam Harding, Katy Harding, Kevin Riley, Thomas Leighton
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I own nothing about Star Trek (2009), its characters or plotlines, including any recognizable dialogue.
Summary: “When I was ten years old,” Jim says, voice tight and hands clenched tighter, “I drove my dad’s antique Corvette into a quarry in Iowa. [...] Within the week I was on a shuttle to stay with my mother’s brother and his family on a relatively new colony called Tarsus IV. It was supposed to be fun... For six months, that was the happiest I’d ever been." Jim smiles wryly and shakes his head. “Obviously, it didn’t stay that way.”
WARNING: Tarsus IV story
A/N: Linger-verse, the Tarsus side story touched on briefly in Linger. Specifically, this story is set both when Jim is 11 and living with his aunt and uncle on Tarsus and after he takes the Kobayashi Maru for the first time. In other words, this is the story he tells Bones after Bones corners him about his eating/sleeping/work habits.
NOTE: In this story, as in Linger, George Kirk is dead. When Jim sees and interacts with him, he’s a spirit somehow connected with his son, allowing Jim to grow up knowing his father.
+
“When I was ten years old,” Jim says, voice tight and hands clenched tighter, “I drove my dad’s antique Corvette into a quarry in Iowa. My mom was off-planet, my brother had just run away again, and I’d had enough of my stepdad.” Bones’ eyes are dark over the table, hands still and loose around his coffee cup as he watches Jim’s face. Jim has no idea what his expression’s giving away and Bones’ face is unreadable, so he focuses on the story, tries to pretend it happened to someone else as he says the words.
It doesn’t work very well.
He wishes George were here, wishes George hadn’t convinced him he needed to do this, wishes Bones had never asked. But George was right and there is nothing like pity in Bones’ eyes, not yet, at least. Jim relaxes his hands, pushes his breakfast plate away - ignores the vague nausea he feels at the smell - settles more comfortably in his chair and fixes his gaze calmly on Bones’ face.
“Needless to say, Frank wasn’t pleased. Within the week I was on a shuttle to stay with my mother’s brother and his family on a relatively new colony called Tarsus IV. It was supposed to be fun, a break from Frank and Iowa and being ‘that Kirk kid,’ and it was. For six months, that was the happiest I’d ever been.” He swallows hard, takes a sip of the orange juice sitting next to his plate to mitigate the sudden dryness of his throat. Bones’ expression is slightly pained, fingertips turning white from where he’s moved his hands to hold his coffee cup. Jim smiles wryly and shakes his head. “Obviously, it didn’t stay that way.”
+
The first sign of something going wrong is the soldier suddenly patrolling the end of the street, plasma rifle slung over one shoulder.
Jim’s playing tag with Kevin and Katy, trying to find a good hiding place but somewhere where Kevin’ll find him eventually, when he notices him. He stops dead in the middle of the street, arms slowly lowering to hang at his sides, and watches the guard make a lazy circuit, eyes half-lidded with boredom until they settle on Jim. Then he straightens up, pulls the rifle down off his shoulder and holds it loosely in his hands, squaring his posture and purposefully canvassing the area from the street corner. Eyebrow raised at such a blatant show, Jim rolls his eyes and ducks behind Ms. Hoshi’s fence, peering at the guard through the slats occasionally but mostly waiting for Kevin to round the corner and discover him.
They play for fifteen more minutes, the guard’s posture softening when they’re out of sight and snapping back into shape whenever they appear, until Aunt Gwen calls them in for dinner. Jim pauses in the doorway and glances back at the guard, watching as he watches Jim. They stare at each other over the distance, neither moving other than to breathe, as the sun sinks down over the horizon in a stunning shower of green-tinged pinks. Just before twilight truly starts to set in, Jim nods once and ducks into the house, latching and locking the door behind him. Uncle Sam ruffles Jim’s hair as he walks into the kitchen and gathers the placesettings for the table, unable to keep the smile off his face as he helps Katy fold the napkins and line the silverware up correctly.
George’s eyes are dark and unreadable from where he stands in the corner, arms crossed over his chest as he watches his son, but Jim can’t be bothered to care.
It had made the guard nervous, to have Jim acknowledge him so blatantly. The satisfaction he feels at the unease obvious on the guy’s face lasts through dinner, through homework and telling Katy a bedtime story, through the rest of the week, until Uncle Sam tells him that, if Sadie’s litter turns out all right, he might be able to have a puppy.
At eleven years old, not much is more interesting than the prospect of getting a puppy.
+
“The guards appeared first,” he says, pulling his finger carelessly through the condensation on the outside of his juice glass. “I mean, I’d heard my aunt and uncle discussing how there’d been less food at the market recently and all, but I was eleven.” He shrugs again and looks up at Bones, whose mouth is tight at the corners.
“It got to be a game with us kids - who could freak who out first. We’d spend hours sitting on the corners, staring at the poor guy posted on our block.” He chuckles darkly (there’s a flash of blue eyes at the corner of his vision but he stays focused on his story, already knowing George won’t actually intervene - he never has, if he thought something was important for Jim). “One or two of them would do something to scatter us, but mostly they did nothing, just paced nervously from corner to corner and avoided our eyes. I got a puppy shortly after that,” he says, smiling bleakly down at the table. “Named her Carol and dragged her everywhere with me.”
The smile falls off his face slowly, melting into one of the many unnamable emotions he was left with after Tarsus.
“God, I loved that dog.”
+
As the months pass and the guards remain stationed on the street corners, the kids in the neighborhood get bored and move on to more entertaining afternoon pursuits. At six months old, Carol’s adorably gangly, with floppy ears and awkwardly huge paws that trip her up more often than they get her where she wants to go, and Jim’s taken to dragging her around with him wherever he goes.
“Nice dog, Kirk,” he hears behind him as he’s walking Carol one afternoon and he turns to grin at the speaker, stumbling slightly as Carol tries to continue forward and is thwarted by the short span of her leash. She quickly understands that Jim’s distracted and flops down in the Tarsus dust, pink tongue lolling out of her mouth shamelessly as she tracks birds with quick flicks of her eyes.
“Shut up, Thom!” Jim calls back good-naturedly, waving vigorously at the older boy. “Hey! Did’ja get that new comic your dad promised you?” he asks, fiddling with the seams on Carol’s leash.
“Yeah! I’ll swing by later an’ drop it off, ‘kay?”
Jim grins and stumbles backward, almost overbalancing as Carol jumps to her feet and lurches forward a step when a bird flies too close. He waves at Thom again and spins around, launching into a full-tilt run from sheer happiness, Carol barking wildly as she keeps pace beside him.
They play for hours in the meadow near Gwen and Sam’s house, Jim throwing tennis balls and stray sticks that Carol chases with endless enthusiasm, clouds of dust kicking up under their running feet. Once he’s thoroughly worn out his throwing arm, Jim flops down in the grass, panting lightly as Carol follows suit and curls up next to him. The sky is a brilliant blue overhead and, if Jim ignores the just-slightly too purple tint above him, it feels like any late summer day in Iowa.
“You go to sleep there, you’ll be red as a lobster later,” George comments from somewhere above him, a smile in his voice.
“But I’m tired,” Jim says, whining just a little. He’d run from their street here, with Carol tugging him along behind her, and spent hours playing under the warm sun - he’s more than ready to be entirely immobile for a little while.
“Hmm,” George hums, reaching down to run a hand over Carol’s head. Her tongue lolls out in a friendly, doggy-smile as she shifts to look up at him, her wise brown eyes trained securely on his face. Jim’s still confused by Carol’s ability to see George, but he suspects George doesn’t know why Carol can see him either, so he doesn’t ask the question. Instead, he lays there in the grass and tries to ignore the sour twist in his stomach as George scratches Carol’s head and the dog leans easily into the touch.
“Jim. Jimmy.” Jim opens his eyes and rolls his head to look at his father, blinking blearily in the sunlight. George smiles indulgently and shakes his head. “Seriously, don’t fall asleep here - you’ll make yourself sick. C’mon, I wanna show you somethin’.”
With a put-upon sigh, Jim crawls to his feet, groaning theatrically as he slips his shoes back on and follows George over to the treeline. George stoops down and points a finger at an oddly shaped plant, with bright purple-green, triangular leaves. “See this, Jimmy? Looks funny, I know, but it tastes pretty good. Kinda like minty cabbage. Pick a leaf and try it,” he instructs and, while Jim is leery of just arbitrarily eating random plants (Sam and Gwen had given him a long, stern lecture the day after he arrived, explaining that not everything had been tested for compatibility with humans, so he needed to be extra careful, especially with Katy), he trusts that George hasn’t led him wrong thus far and really wouldn’t seek to poison him now.
Sure enough, the leaves of the odd little plant do have a kind of minty flavor, unusual but not unpleasant. Jim grins up at George and snags another leaf, nibbling slowly at the edges. And when George points into the copse, Jim is just able to see several of the plants through the shadows, often nestled at the bases of the larger trees.
Several feet away, Carol yips and nosedives into the grass, flushing out a pair of bird-like creatures and chasing them down until Jim manages to grab a hold of her collar and reattach her leash.
+
“There was so much to explore, so much to learn about the colony,” Jim says wonderingly, shaking his head a little. “I spent as much spare time as possible poking through the wooded areas around my uncle and aunt’s house. There were tons of new plants, a lot of which were edible, something I learned...through trial-and-error.” He chews on the corner of one lip. So much of Tarsus involves George and Jim can’t tell Bones about him - he’s pretty sure, from past occurrences, that not much else’ll send the well-meaning doctor after a tricorder faster than Jim saying he can see his long-dead father. He takes a deep breath, resigning himself to editing - just a little - what he says.
“Of all of my friends, I was the one who best knew the layout of the colony and the land around it. We’d spend hours playing hide-and-seek in the woods or tag out in the fields. And Mom and Sam’s dad had been in Starfleet and had taught his son a lot of camping-type, wilderness skills, which Sam decided to teach me, what with the planet being as new and empty as it was. Plus, he and Aunt Gwen were hoping to expand their family and I’m pretty sure he wanted a son so bad he could taste it.” Jim grins, a quick flash of teeth that prompts the same from Bones. “Katy was fun and all, but very definitely a girl.”
+
“Ew, Daddy, there’s bugs!” Katy squeals, dancing sideways and pointing as a centipede-type insect crawled sedately past her foot. Sam chuckles and swings her up onto his shoulders, bouncing her lightly as he and Jim continue farther through the forest.
“Sure there are, baby. We’re ‘in the wild’,” he growls playfully, tickling behind her knees so that she laughs and squirms on her perch. “We’re ‘sploring, right, Jimmy?” he asks, grinning brightly at his nephew as Jim negotiates his way over a fallen tree.
Jim smiles back at him and crashes through the underbrush, trusting his uncle to be able to follow his tracks, if not the ruckus he’s causing, and not get lost. Sometimes it catches Jim off-guard, how much alike Sam and Winona look. Most of the time, it isn’t any big deal but when he grins like that - about the only expression of happiness Winona was able to give her youngest son, and only rarely at that - their relationship is undeniable. Smiling again and snatching up a long, sturdy stick to poke at things with, Jim pushes away the unhappy memories and focuses on where he’s going.
It’s one of the first weekends Sam’s had free in about a month and Jim’s finally got a chance to show his uncle how much of the area he knows, which Sam had decided was the perfect time for them to go camping. Jim’s excitement knows no bounds, even with finicky little five-year-old Katy tagging along, and he careens around the forest with as much ease as ever, despite the not-inconsiderable weight of the pack on his back. Sam had let him choose their campsite, as long as he could point out a general approximation of where it was on their map before they set out, and he can’t wait to get them there.
Using his stick, he slashes through a couple of long-fronded bushes and nearly jumps out of his skin when he steps forward and almost walks face-first into what’s just about the biggest spiderweb he’s ever seen.
“Holy crap!” he says, loudly, gooseflesh breaking out over his skin as he steps backward, away from the web.
“Language, Jim!” he hears distantly behind him, his uncle’s habitually calm admonishment rolling off his back as it always does (Gwen and Sam had been trying to, since he arrived on-planet, gently address and correct certain behavioral flaws he’d developed living with Frank, foul language being one of them) - he listens to them, of course, but George’s disapproval does more to curb his attitude than anyone else’s ever has.
“That’s gotta be one big friggin’ spider,” Jim mutters under his breath, warily circling the web, hands caught in his pack’s straps as he peers at the construction.
“Language, Jimmy,” George says as Jim rounds the tree supporting one side of the web and Jim jumps again. George chuckles and crosses his arms, leaning against a nearby tree as his son glares at him.
“You scared me,” he accuses.
“Shoulda listened to your uncle - Katy can hear you and she doesn’t need to hear that,” George comments mildly and Jim feels himself flush, suitably chastened. “Spider’s over here, by the way,” George points and Jim follows his finger to the insect’s hiding place.
It is a large spider, easily the size of a Terran camel spider, and the same mottled brown-black of the tree trunk. Jim cringes and steps well away from the tree, skin rolling in a full-body shudder. He’s not afraid of bugs, not like Katy, but this thing is as big or bigger than his hand, not that he’s getting close enough to find out, no sir. As he watches, it takes a wary step forward, legs reaching out and feeling along some pre-decided path before hauling its body in that direction. Jim shudders again and unconsciously reaches up to scratch at his neck, unnerved by the creature. Face twisting in distaste, he turns his back on the tree and moves back toward his own path, more than ready to set up camp.
“You know, those things aren’t poisonous,” George remarks, stepping neatly around trees and bushes as he walks with Jim (he misses one once, when he glances up to look at Jim, and Jim sniggers as he moves right through it).
“That’s a surprise,” Jim replies, wanting more than anything to not be talking about the spider, but willing to see where George is going with this. “You’d think something that big’d be deadly.”
“Nah, it’s harmless. Just eats smaller bugs’n builds giant webs.” George grins slyly and pauses, waiting until Jim’s stopped and turned to face him before continuing. “They’re a great source of nutrition.”
“Oh, gross!” Jim cries, gagging a little as he realizes what George means. “That’s so nasty!” His stomach rolls again as he pictures anyone eating that thing - or any other bugs.
“Hey, when you’re hungry...” George is still grinning but his eyes are strangely solemn. Jim’s too preoccupied by the disgusting imagery to notice.
“I’ll never be hungry enough to eat bugs!” Jim vows before running ahead to the clearing they’d been trekking toward, slinging his pack to the ground and starting to dig the pit Sam’d told him they’d need for a fire that evening.
George watches him go, hands in his pockets and his expression one of concentration turned inward. He waits until Sam and Katy reach the clearing and start helping set up camp, then sighs and turns away, melting into the forest shadows.
+
“The guards patrolled the street corners for four months, changing shifts three times a day. They became part of life, you know, ‘hey, how’re the kids, how’s Sam’s job doin’, d’you see the new guy patrolling the end of the block?’” Jim shrugs and takes a sip of his orange juice. “It was no big thing.”
He drifts into silence, staring at the tabletop as Bones gathers up their dishes, stacking them neatly on the tray he’d brought them in on, and pours himself another cup of coffee. He settles back into his seat across from Jim, slowly makes his way through half his cup, then clears his throat.
“So, what changed?” he asks, voice husky and low around the rim of his mug.
“Didn’t rain for a month straight. Food started getting lower than usual, the scientists all started pulling longer hours in their labs doing research. Kodos’ weekly messages to the colony decreased to once a month. Little things. Nothing you’d really notice at first; shoot, Thom, Kevin, Katy, and I had no idea what was going on ‘til things were really bad. But, looking back, y’have to wonder how the hell no one saw it coming.”
+
“Hey, Uncle Sam! The comm won’t connect!” Jim calls, hanging over the back of the desk chair as he watches the doorway for his uncle. Using a foot, he swings the chair back and forth, letting the momentum tug his body in different directions, while the computer chimes softly behind him and flashes its error message. Jim pulls a face and turns to plop back into the chair when his uncle doesn’t immediately come when called.
“Now, I know you know enough electronics to rule out the basic causes, Jim,” George says, appearing next to the desk. He grins at his son and points a finger at the monitor. “Give me three reasons it might not be working.”
“Hmm,” Jim hums, swaying the chair back and forth as he thinks. “Network card might not be active, might be burned out, or...”
“Or?” George prompts.
“Or... it’s...” Jim flounders for an answer, feeling the tips of his ears tint pink as it evades him.
“Did someone log it into the colony’s network this morning?” George asks, blue eyes sparkling.
“Oh!” Jim jumps, rolling his eyes and sticking out his tongue as he pulls up the computer’s command prompt and starts checking for causes. “It’s found the network card, so that’s not the problem... And Aunt Gwen logged in this morning before heading to her lab, so that’s not it, either. Huh.” Jim sits back, staring at the screen. He turns to look up at George, who’s moved to lean over the desk to watch Jim work. “What else could it be?”
“Well, try this...”
Twenty minutes later, Jim finishes tightening the last of the CPU case’s screws. He slides the tool back into his uncle’s tech kit and replaces it in the drawer, making sure it’s back exactly where it had been before so as to avoid a lecture about messing with the computer later. He climbs back into the chair and boots up the computer, logs in with the credentials he’d been issued upon arriving on Tarsus, and tries to connect again. He and George both watch in silence, Jim holding his breath in anticipation, until the error message flashes up again. Jim heaves a gusty sigh and slumps back in the chair.
“I don’t know what the problem is,” George muses, frowning at the screen.
The front door opens and closes and Katy’s bright voice fills the entryway as she tells her father about the game she and her friends had played at school that day. Sam responds occasionally as they move through the house, then Katy squeals a giggle before thundering off to her bedroom, laughter trailing behind her. Sam’s still smiling as he steps into the family room, though it dims a little as Jim turns to greet him.
“Uncle Sam, the comm won’t connect and it’s the thirteenth and I’m supposed to ‘call Mom and if I miss it, I won’t get another chance until next month,” Jim explains in one breath, ignoring George’s chuckles behind him.
“Well, then,” Sam murmurs, leaning down over the desk to poke at the keyboard. He runs through a series of commands, checks everything Jim’d already checked on, nudges Jim out of the way and looks over the hardware to make sure everything’s as it should be. Jim heaves a long-suffering sigh and rolls his eyes at George, but doesn’t try to tell his uncle he’s done all this already - he and George agree that Sam’ll only find out about Jim’s computer prowess when absolutely necessary. “I wonder what’s the problem,” he muses, staring pensively at the monitor.
“What’re we gonna do?”
“Wait here, I’m gonna go see if the Leightons have access,” Sam tells him, then leaves the room.
“I don’t think the Leightons can connect, either,” George says, frowning.
“Why?”
“I’m not sure.” George’s eyes are distant and troubled as he stares blankly over Jim’s shoulder. “I thought there was more time,” he murmurs, almost to himself but loud enough for Jim to hear.
“What?”
George opens his mouth to answer (probably to deflect, judging by the expression on his face), but Sam comes back into the room, looking confused.
“Thom said they haven’t been able to connect all day, that they’ve just been getting the error message, too.” He stares at the console screen, frowning like George had. “I’m not sure anyone can connect.”
“What?”
But Aunt Gwen comes in the front door, then, carrying her usual stack of PADDs and a bag of groceries, calling out greetings and questions about the day and Sam doesn’t say anything else to Jim, who worries about his inability to call his mom but is promptly distracted by other things.
+
They’ve been sitting in silence for the last ten minutes, Jim working up the nerve to continue his narration and Bones just waiting patiently for Jim. A nervous sweat’s broken out over the back of Jim’s neck and the palms of his hands, but his face feels numb and he’s not quite sure he’s actually speaking aloud when he finally opens his mouth.
“We went a month without the comms before the first...incident,” he says, twitching his head just enough to relieve some of the tension building in his shoulders. “Rainfall averages were down to about 25 percent of normal and half the crops on the planet were failing for lack of water while the other half succumbed to a fungus. There was a ration system in place, allowing a certain allotment of food per person per household, with the hope that the next shipment of supplies would bring some relief.” He swallows and runs his finger through the condensation his juice glass has left on the tabletop. “We didn’t know that the comm blackout was orchestrated by Kodos or that the supply ships had been turned away, likely told that we’d managed to get our agriculture up and running smoothly and were no longer in need of the quarterly food shipments.”
Bones’ fingers tense where they’re laced together in front of him, in understanding or awful anticipation Jim’s not quite sure. He is sure that his breakfast is rapidly souring in his stomach, as he thinks about those last few months (God, was it really only a few months?).
“So, when one family matriarch, and then another, and another, was given only a portion of what the markets had been allowing her household, a panic swept the colony - people had finally started to realize there may be a real problem.” He looks up at Bones and whatever the doctor sees in his eyes makes him blanch, eyes widening with the first hints of honest horror.
“Five hundred people died in the first riot, when the mob rushed the food stands at the market and the guards on patrol followed their orders to fire on the crowd-”
+
“Hey, Jimmy,” Aunt Gwen murmurs, running gentle fingers through his bangs as he blinks awake and peers blearily up at her. “Just letting you know you can sleep in today - school’s cancelled for a little while, okay, kiddo? Go back to sleep,” she whispers and Jim’s eyes slide shut once more.
She doesn’t tell him school is cancelled because three of the ten teachers for his level were killed in the marketplace riot or that, because of that and the colony’s continued unrest, all lessons are on hold indefinitely. She just stays by his side, combing her fingers through his hair until he sighs and falls asleep again, entirely unaware of George, standing sentry in the corner, his brows drawn in worry as he watches over his son.
+
“-two hundred or so in the second-”
+
“Uncle Sam! I’m takin’ Carol out to the field!” Jimmy calls as he clips the leash to Carol’s collar, giggling as he pushes her furry muzzle out of his face and wipes her enthusiastic kisses off his cheeks.
“No, Jim!” And there’s a sharp note in Sam’s voice, making him sound more like Winona than he has yet. Jim rocks back on his heels, staring as Sam comes to the kitchen doorway. Carol whines impatiently but Jim hushes her, studying the expression on his uncle’s face for a clue.
“Why?” he asks suspiciously, intuiting more than most eleven-year-olds might.
“Just-Jim, it’s-” Jim watches his uncle try to explain without actually saying anything that might upset his nephew. He sighs, shoulders slumping. “I’d really rather you not go out today,” Sam settles on finally, staring at Jim with pleading eyes.
Jim considers for a second, eyes flicking briefly from his uncle to where his father’s standing silently just inside the kitchen doorway, trying to hide an unwontedly sober expression. “Okay,” he agrees, unclipping Carol’s leash and turning to launch her tennis ball down the hallway.
“Hey,” Sam offers, expression still somehow both terrified and calm, “there’re some books in the chest in my room you might like. You’re not too much younger than I was when I first read them.” He smiles tentatively, then with more feeling when Jim grins back at him. “Go on, scamp. Just don’t tell your aunt I’m lettin’ you read ‘em - you know how careful she is about keeping real books in good condition.” He grins again as Jim runs off to the bedrooms and turns to head back to fixing dinner.
+
“-and no less than seventy-five in the last, though we were never completely sure exactly how many died.”
+
He’s curled up under the kitchen window, the dried grass prickling through his pants as he devotes his attention to the book in his hands. It’s late afternoon, the greeny-pink sun just starting to slant through the trees along the backyard, and he’s trying to make the best of his aunt’s grudgingly allowing him outside for the first time in ages while she fixes dinner. He turns another page, desperate to know if Stefen’s going reach help in time to save Vanyel from Leareth and his army, and doesn’t even slow his reading as his aunt and uncle’s voices infringe on his concentration and threaten to distract him.
“-Dolli Leighton said she hasn’t heard from Tald’is or Amrl since the last riot. She’s terrified they were involved somehow, said they’d all planned to head to the stores together but Thom jammed the trash compacter and she’d had to put off the trip to fix it. Have you-”
“No, nothing,” Sam answers his wife’s stilted question in an undertone. Jim blinks hard and shifts his eyes back to reread the last sentence, frowning in concentration as he tries to block them out. Sitting next to him, George tilts his head up to stare at the open window above them, blue eyes troubled as he listens. “But Jack and Annie haven’t been at work, either. Maybe they’ve just been busy?” Sam posits worriedly and a dish clatters on the countertop, as though he can’t stop his hands shaking slightly.
Jim flips a page and reads on, racing through the words and doing his best to ignore the conversation over his head - he’s pages from the end of the book and wants to be done before dinner, so he can move on to the next trilogy his uncle had stored in his old cedar chest. George is a silent presence at his side, much like he has been recently, so only the conversation in the kitchen threatens to disturb him and Jim cares nothing about his aunt and uncle’s worries.
“I don’t think so,” Gwen sighs, her voice wavering. There’s a silence broken only by the birds outside and the soft sizzle of something cooking on the stove. “Somehow, I think things are going to get a lot worse before they get better,” she whispers, her voice barely audible through the window, but Jim’s had enough. Too distracted and too intent on finishing his book, he moves to sit by the back door, where he can’t hear his aunt and uncle talking and can finally concentrate.
George stays under the window, with his head tipped back and his eyes closed, face tight with pain and fear.
+
“A month later, Kodos called an assembly at the town square. My family and most of our neighbors were on the lists of those called to assemble.” He shrugs and tries to arrange his expression into something resembling calm acceptance of the past, but his muscles won’t work right and the words won’t stop coming.
“We had no idea what was going on. I mean, things were bad but they didn’t seem too bad, you know? Aunt Gwen and Uncle Sam were still able to get us plenty to eat, were even able to help make sure Kevin and-and Thom’s families had enough food. We-the guards patrolling our neighborhood never seemed particularly stressed or anxious, we- There was no clue,” he blurts, hands starting to shake. He tucks them away under his thighs and looks up at Bones, desperately needing to see that there isn’t blame in the doctor’s eyes.
“Jim, I doubt anyone knew what was going to happen,” Bones says, his voice as steady and sure as his hands as he reaches out to grip Jim’s shoulder. Jim swallows harshly and nods jerkily.
+
“Survival depends on drastic measures. Your continued existence represents a threat to the well-being of society. Your lives mean slow death to the more valued members of the colony. Therefore, I have no alternative but to sentence you to death. Your execution is so ordered.”
There’s silence in the square, a ringing emptiness of bafflement and confusion. Surely he didn’t mean-
But then the first guard steps forward and raises his weapon. The high-pitched whine of the weapon charging splits the silence, hanging in the air for a moment before-
-all hell breaks loose, people running and screaming, the smell of ozone and singed meat and a heavy copper scent unlike anything Jim’s ever smelled before in his life but recognizes almost instantly-
-he runs, Katy’s hand tight in his, his aunt’s panicked voice driving him into the thick of the crowd, one last squeeze of Sam’s hand on his shoulder bolstering him as he tugs Katy after him, never letting go-
-he sees George in flashes and glimpses, just before he gets a hand on Kevin’s collar, right after catching sight of Thom Leighton’s bleach-white face as the older boy hefts two younger children into his arms and takes off running-
-George is right next to him, yelling in his ear, and Jim realizes what he’s saying just in time to duck and haul Katy and Kevin down beside him, barely dodging the phaser fire that sweeps over their heads and cuts down the people that’d been behind them-
-they shove through the thinning crowds, duck behind benches and streetlights, run hell-for-leather until they reach an empty street, then another, sobbing their grief and terror as they never stop running-
They run until Katy collapses in exhaustion, gasping for breath in wheezes and moans. Jim snatches her into his arms and she’s much lighter than he expects, light enough to carry down one more street, then another. They make it to the schoolyard and George is there, face pale and eyes frantic as he motions for Jim to head into the building. It’s cool and cavernous inside, empty and echoing eerily as they jog through hallways, not stopping until they reach the storage room and manage to wedge the door shut behind them.
They sit there for hours, while Katy sobs herself to sleep in Jim’s lap and Kevin folds himself tightly into Jim’s side. George paces like an angry lion in front of the doors and Jim watches him until the back-and-forth cadence of his steps lulls him into an exhausted doze.
Jim wakes an indeterminate time later to someone scratching and whispering at the door. Shoving a whimpering Katy at Kevin, Jim moves to press his ear to the wood and listens, trying to hear over the pounding of his heart.
“Please, is anyone in there? I’ve got kids here and I-”
“It’s Thom,” George says and Jim quickly opens the door to reveal his friend, surrounded by a small (so small, there’s so few of them) group of children, none older than Jim himself.
They crowd together in the store room, bodies tight against each other not because of a lack of space but to give and receive comfort and a meager reassurance that they’re not alone in this nightmare.
+
“We stayed there for three days, Thom or I occasionally slipping out to find food or see what was going on. We were the oldest - an eleven-year-old and a sixteen-year-old doing their best to keep themselves and twelve children alive. God, we wouldn’t’ve survived the first night if it weren’t for-” George “-instinct.”
Bones’ eyes are dark with pain, his own from listening and Jim’s from having to remember. Jim closes his own eyes to block out Bones’ stricken expression and Katy’s face swims up behind his eyelids. He opens them again and focuses on the flowering bush growing outside the window.
“We left the school four days after the massacre. We found a few old carisaks in a couple of the classrooms and stuffed ‘em with as much food and supplies as we could find and took to the forests. Katy and a couple of the younger kids hated that,” he says, mouth twisting at the bittersweet memory of their complaints, “but it was the safest place for us and I knew them as well as the back of my hand. We stayed there for a month, sheltered in the trees and caves and living hand-to-mouth, trying to avoid the soldiers patrolling the streets and the wildlife whose home we’d invaded.”
+
“Jimmy, I’m hungry,” Sarai whispers softly, tugging at his shirtsleeve. Jim smiles down at her and takes her hand in his, pain and panic roiling in his stomach at how thin and cold her fingers are, despite the heat.
“Okay, Sarai, let’s find some food.” He looks up and briefly studies the faces of the kids nearest him. “Kevin, Da’lin, come help me see if we can find a snack.” The younger boys’ faces light up at the prospect of food and they jump to their feet, wobbling slightly with dizziness.
They find a shrub laden with berries and immediately start filling the little plastic pails with the fruits while Jim keeps a watchful eye out on the other kids left in the clearing. Katy’s playing in the dirt with Naara and Natil, while Jem, Anders, and Querna play tag around a couple of nearby trees. Thom, Joron, and Michale had all gone off to find shelter for the night, each gathering twigs and sticks for their little fire tonight.
“No, Jim, not that one, this one,” he hears George say and turns to see Da’lin’s moved on to another shrub and started pulling berries off the branches. Even from where he’s standing several feet away, Jim can see that the little red fruits are different from what they’d started out gathering. “See the berries? No black spots, right? The black spots mean they’re poisonous. Those little red ones, those’ll hold you for a little while, okay?”
“Hey, Da’l, wait up!” Jim hurries over and quickly sorts out the handful of spotted berries in Da’lin’s bucket. “These’ll make you sick, bud, okay? We can’t eat these, only the ones without spots,” he instructs, smiling fondly into Da’lin’s purple-blue eyes to take the sting away from his words. The little boy nods vigorously and runs off to another, safer bush.
Jim sighs and leans against a nearby tree, realizing how close they’d come to catastrophe. He glances around, keeping tabs on his kids, and catches sight of a huge spiderweb strung between a pair of leafless saplings. He shudders and edges away, feeling the hair on his arms and the back of his neck rise as he remembers the flippant vow he made on that camping trip all those months ago. Squaring his shoulders, he heads off to help the boys gather their berries, still hoping he’ll be able to keep that vow.
+
“Jim,” Thom says one night, quietly so that they don’t wake the younger kids, “what’re we doing?”
Jim’s exhausted - they’d been on the move since before sunrise and stopped only after the sun had long set, except for small food breaks - but he can’t seem to find sleep, his eyes sandpapery and burning as he stares into the tiny fire they built to sleep around. He shivers, pulling the overlarge sweatshirt tighter around his shoulders, and leans his head down to rest his forehead on his raised knees.
“I don’t know, Thom.” He doesn’t, not what to say or what to do; he’s been relying as much on George as on pure dumb luck and expects one, the other, or both to fail him any moment now. “My mom’s back on Earth. I haven’t talked to her for months. Maybe she’ll...” he trails off, remembering so many years of absent indifference and vague hostility - there’s no guarantee she’ll do anything, not to his jaded mind.
“Starfleet’ll save us, right, Jim?” Thom asks hopefully, sounding as young as Kevin, and Jim doesn’t have the heart to deny him.
“Sure. There’s probably someone on their way now,” he answers, injecting as much cheer as possible into the words, trying to make himself believe them.
“Jim!” Jim’s head shoots up and he stares at George’s strained face, reading the urgency in the stark lines around his father’s blue eyes. “Jim, wake the kids, I hear someone coming, you’ll have to run for it.” Jim’s exhausted but on his feet in an instant, kicking dirt over their little fire and whispering harshly for Thom to get the kids up.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, already moving to shake Kevin and Sarai awake.
“Someone’s coming,” Jim answers shortly.
“Carry the littler ones if you need to. Come on, kiddo,” George urges, staring out into the distance, hand stretched in the opposite direction to indicate where the kids should head.
Jim hauls Naara up into his arms and slings her around to ride piggy-back, while Natil reaches and scrambles up to rest his weight on Jim’s right hip, leaving Jim’s left hand free to grab Katy’s hand. Thom’s similarly draped, one child on his back and one on his hip, and the kids still on their feet grab their bags and take off in the direction Jim points, crawling as quietly as possible through the bushes and underbrush.
They melt silently away from their camp, spreading out just enough to not cause to much noise but also not lose track of each other. Less than fifty yards away from the camp, Jim hears raised voices behind him and picks up a little more speed, dragging Katy behind him. Silent tears gleam on her cheeks after she stumbles once and nearly drags them all down, but they keep going, panic and instinct driving them like wild things, trying to find safety.
Even when they finally clamber into the tiny caverns of a cave-pocked hillside and tuck themselves into the crevices, no one goes back to sleep.
+
“George,” Jim whispers, voice harsh over the sounds of wildlife as he stands by himself in the clearing. “George, I need your help.”
No sooner than he’s said the words, George’s there, as calm and unruffled as ever, though his eyes flick around the clearing with military efficiency, something Jim recognizes from watching the soldiers from various hiding spots in the forest.
“What’s up, kiddo?”
Jim sighs and leans against a tree. He feels perpetually exhausted and constantly hungry - he takes the first and last watches of every night and only allows himself half of the amount of food the others get, the other half of his meals going to whichever child is looking hungrier at that moment.
“We need water,” he says flatly, vision swimming slightly as he pulls himself upright and steps toward his father.
George heads off into the forest, passing just enough unique plants and trees that Jim can find his way back to Thom and the kids later. Five minutes after they started, Jim hears water and takes off toward it, falling to his knees at the edge of the smallish pond.
“Hey, hey, wait,” George says, leaning down next to him and pointing. “See the cloud in the water, Jim? You can’t drink it, it’s been fouled. See how the plants at the edges died?” And Jim wants to cry when he realizes his father’s right, when he peers more closely into the water and sees the garbage and rotting things sunk at the bottom.
He stumbles away from the water and lets himself collapse backward into the underbrush, crushed leaves and tiny plants cushioning his weight. He’s so tired he can barely keep his eyes open, grief-stricken from the loss of his aunt and uncle, and near-sick with the constant panic in the bottom of his stomach. He’s eleven-years-old, he isn’t supposed to have twelve kids depending on him, isn’t supposed to be the one who holds Katy at night until she cries herself to sleep, isn’t supposed to be the most responsible, the one even Thom looks to for guidance. He’s supposed to be spending his days in school and spending his afternoons playing with his dog, with his aunt and uncle to guard and guide him until the end of his mom’s current tour, when he’s supposed to go back to Earth and stay with her.
“Jim?” George asks hesitantly, leaning over to run a hand across Jim’s forehead. Jim blinks at the odd way the sunlight seems to shine through George’s hand and turns to look at his father. His face is compassionate, his eyes tender, and his soft smile hurts to look at, but at least it’s not Thom or Kevin or Katy or any of the kids begging him for more than he can give. “Come on, I know where you can get something to drink, go get the kids.”
+
“Eventually, of course, we couldn’t run any farther. We were too exhausted, undernourished, grieving, inexperienced - it’s a wonder we made it as long as we did.” Jim looks away from the window and closes his eyes, a negative image of the bush outside glowing briefly behind his eyelids.
“Jim-” Bones starts but Jim speaks over him. He’s not stopping now, no matter that Bones is probably just trying to save him from the worst memories. He has to get them out, has a feeling they’ll do infinitely more damage now, half-exposed as they are, than if he uncovers them.
He worries at a hangnail on his thumb as he starts to speak again, scratching at the loose skin absentmindedly as he stares into the distance.
“We were to be taken to Kodos. The guards chained us together and forced us to go through the town square. God, they-Everyone was still there, right where they fell, the sun baking them into husks of bodies strewn like dolls through the streets...”
+
He can hear Katy crying behind him, can hear one of the little ones stumble and fall, retching pitifully at the sight. He wants to gather them into his arms, hide their eyes and pull them away from this atrocity, but his hands are bound and he’s so weak, knees barely able to keep him on his feet.
The sergeant in charge of the group that found them takes a tight grip on Jim’s arm and hauls him forward, forcing everyone behind Jim to stumble and almost fall. Jim’s chained at the head of the group - he wouldn’t let anyone else take the blame for this, even when Thom stepped forward to do so. George’s eyes are grim and his mouth’s a bloodless white line in his face but he doesn’t try to make Jim back down. The guard’s glee at finding them is more than enough to tell Jim they’re in for a world of trouble when Kodos gets a hold of them and Jim refuses to let anyone else get hurt.
“Come on, punk. The governor wants a word with you,” the soldier nearest Jim sneers and takes a handful of Jim’s hair, dragging him toward Kodos’ mansion.
Chains clank behind him as he shuffles forward and he hears Kevin cry out behind him, demanding they let Jim go. Gritting his teeth, he keeps step with the guard, hating the way it drags all the kids forward. Through the burn in his scalp and the ache in his shoulders from the bindings keeping his wrists behind his back, he’s glad Thom managed to get himself shoved to the back of the line, with Naara and Sarai directly in front of him - from there, he might be able to do something to keep them from being dragged by their wrists through the gore in the streets.
He keeps his eyes up as much as possible, doesn’t want to risk seeing his aunt or uncle among the piles of bodies, but something to the side catches his attention and his eyes automatically swing to take it in. He slows slightly, before another jerk of his hair sends him stumbling forward again, and feels his stomach roil in sick grief as he figures out what the smaller pile of bodies off to the side actually is - the colony’s house pets. He chokes on a sudden surge of bile and tears when he sees flashes of golden-blonde fur, dropping his eyes shut and blindly following the hand in his hair.
By the time the guards drop him at Kodos’ feet, he’s mostly numb inside though, when two guards drag Kevin off in an effort to make Jim talk and another lays into him with an old-fashioned, raw-hide whip, he fights tooth and nail, until he can’t fight anymore.
The kids’ screaming haunts his dreams for years.
+
Jim shrugs and laces his fingers together, raising his eyes to Bones’ face. Two tears have escaped from the iron-hold he’s trying to keep on his emotions, but he doesn’t try to rub them away or hide them. He’s not ashamed or anything, just protective of his kids still. And of the marks, both physical and psychological, Tarsus left on him, which is why he tries to keep as much of his involvement with the colony hidden as possible.
Bones’ own eyes are damp and his voice is hoarse when he speaks. “Jim-”
“Starfleet arrived two weeks later and pulled us out of Kodos’ prisons. Five of our group survived, myself included; starvation and exposure took the others, the younger ones mostly. Thom survived - he’s a researcher over on Planet Q, developing hardy grains and studying meteorological shifts. Said he wanted to make sure there wasn’t another Tarsus in the future. Kevin-didn’t make it.” He bites off anything else that might come out - Jim admitting he could see one dead person might’ve turned out okay, but two would likely cross some sort of line.
“What about Katy?” Bones asks, his voice quiet and raw as he studies Jim with solemn hazel eyes.
“Katy-” Jim’s voice cracks and he has to swallow down the lump that suddenly rises in his throat. “There was so much confusion after the Excalibur arrived. She was sick and I’m not sure-” He stops and takes a breath. “The name Katy Harding never showed on any of the survivor lists,” he says, voice cracking again, and clears his throat.
+
“Please, I just need to find my-my sister,” Jim begs, catching on to uniform sleeves and trying to hold onto arms, anything to make someone listen to him. He can barely sit upright in the bed, but he has to know Katy’s okay. “Please!”
“Calm down, son,” a voice says as someone finally stops at his bed. He’s tallish, older, with a commanding presence that Jim finds instantly reassuring. “What’s the matter?”
“Please, sir, I need to know if my sister’s on board,” Jim says again, trying for every advantage to find Katy, even shifting the relationship from cousin to sister. “Please, she’s just five years old and she was sick, I-”
“Alright, alright,” the man soothes, turning to flag down a nurse and ask for a PADD. “What’s her name?”
“Katy, Katy Harding,” Jim answers quickly, trying to lean over enough to see the PADD’s screen himself.
There’s several minutes of relative silence in the noisy MedBay while the query runs. Jim finds he can hardly breathe, waiting for an answer. Finally, the PADD chimes and the older man looks up, eyes grave as he shifts to perch on the side of Jim’s bed.
“Son, I-I’m sorry, but there’s no one by that name been picked up. Is it possible she...”
But Jim doesn’t hear anymore. Numb, unable to pull together a thought, he curls over in the bed into the fetal position, wrapping thin arms around equally thin legs under the covers. After a time, a gentle hand settles briefly on his shoulder and the bed shifts as the officer leaves, but Jim can’t bring himself to care, even when a nurse comes over shortly thereafter and presses a hypo against his neck, running soothing hands through his too-long hair until the sedative kicks in and he drifts off to sleep.
The next day, he sees Kevin again - looking as young and healthy and mischievous as he’d been when Jim first arrived at Tarsus - and the little boy follows Jim until they make it back to Earth, a meager consolation after all he’s lost.
+
“I still don’t know if she survived. I think I like it better this way, though. Not knowing means there’s a chance she’s still alive, happy and healthy, as beautiful as Aunt Gwen and as smart as Uncle Sam.” He shrugs again and clears his throat.
“So I went back to live with Mom and Frank. And, I mean, it wasn’t great, but it was... it was okay, I guess.” And he hates how that sounds but can’t do anything to change it.
“Jim-” Bones starts, reaching out to Jim but that’s the end of Jim’s endurance.
“Anyway, that’s what happened,” he rushes out, shoving back out of his chair and to his feet, hands in his hair as he paces away from the table. “I’ve, uh, I-I’ve got a class this afternoon, I need to get going, I, um, I’ll talk to you later, Bones, okay?” he tosses over his shoulder as he runs for the door.
+
He avoids his room for the rest of the day, hanging out at the gym and hiding in the back of the library until well after midnight. Finally, when he can’t keep his eyes from crossing in exhaustion and feels like he’s going to collapse, he heads back to his dorm, too tired even to be surprised that Bones is waiting for him anyway.
“What, Bones?” he asks on a sigh, shrugging out of his jacket and throwing himself down on his bed. He mashes his face into the pillow and tries to ignore his best friend.
He hasn’t seen George at all except for this morning. It bothers him, a little, but he figures George probably understands that dealing with Tarsus and his dead-not-dead father all at once are probably too many ghosts in one go, even for someone used to them. He hopes George’ll be back tomorrow, though - nowadays, he gets twitchy when George is gone too long.
He realizes he’s doing a superlative job ignoring Bones only when he jolts out of a doze to the touch of a hand on his shoulder. Soothing fingers run through his hair, lulling him back into that half-aware, almost-dreaming state. And still Bones says nothing, good or bad, inane or noteworthy. He’s just there, a calm, comforting presence at the edge of the bed, and as he starts to fall fully asleep, Jim wonders why he ever feared Bones’ reaction to his past.
+
The next morning, there’s a note pinned to the refrigerator.
It’s okay, it reads, in Bones’ distinctive neat-but-scrawly handwriting.
“Toldja,” George whispers in his ear and he disappears before Jim can turn to look at him. “It’s not a bad thing to let someone in, not when they really care.”