[Sickbay] -- [Open to All!]
The room he had been put into was dimly lit and stifling. The dim lighting was highly preferred to the brilliant white of sickbay proper, but it felt like it was closing in on him. Thanks to Spock, or so he was fairly sure he had told his request to, the drugs keeping his brain from functioning had been taken away or at least decreased severely
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"Wouldn't bullshit you," he said. He shrugged. "Might not want to dump the whole thing on you all at once, but... Okay." He'd have to be careful, keep his voice even, not go into too much detail but not let Kirk feel he was being coddled, either. He knew what he himself could handle.
"The Spocks, Sam, and I beamed over--I think George disabled the shields long enough for us to do that. But it turns out... the Narada, according to Spock, is... sentient. She divided us up, just after Sam was hit in the shoulder by a poison dart. You didn't tell me he was here, by the way." A stern glance. "Beardy-Spock and I--he'd pulled me out of the way, by the way--followed what I could sense of you. And found you and Nero. Spock and he fought. You've never seen anything like it, Jim. He was amazing. The walls--Narada--grabbed me as I tried to make my way to you.
"From what I can piece together, Spock was... melding with the ship. I don't think anyone else had realized what was going on. He established contact, a relationship. And... appealed to her better nature. She let us go, in exchange for Spock's help repairing the damage done to Nero. M'Benga beamed over, patched him up, and the ship beamed them both back.
"Jim..." He searched Kirk's face. "There's a lot to think about. A lot for you to... But for now, remember. They let us go. And that ship's alive. We have some time to think about what this means, and decide what to do. Everyone's safe."
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The ship was alive? The Narada... the Enterprise had shown herself to be alive. He had spoken with her like a human being. Was the Narada really like that as well, enough for not only Spock to meld with her but to appeal to her better nature? What was a ship's better nature?
They had HELPED NERO?
Kirk sucked in a breath, wishing he could find the voice to snarl viciously. Why had they helped him at all!? Why hadn't they beamed Spock back? Had the shields gone back up? Then to beam M'Benga over there... that was putting his crew at risk...!
His fingers tightened on the stylus for a moment, trying to think what to even ask. His brows were furrowed and he was frowning heavily.
Where is the Narada and Nero now?
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Jim held his hand now, his eyes boring into Kirk's, trying to gentle him by force of will. Kirk had deserved to know--maybe not all at once, but Jim knew very well what he himself was like and that he wouldn't have let the story go untold.
"The ship--the Narada--engineered the whole thing. Believe me, I wasn't happy about Spock being there. At all. But it was his decision. Her shields were up--it was only because of her we were beamed back at all. It was because of her that Spock agreed to what he did. As did M'Benga. We don't deny help to those who ask it of us. And I was ready to find a way to get over there and drag them back, if I had to. I didn't. And the impression that I get is that she's still calling the shots. Dealing with whatever she's become."
He grimaced.
"I've been trying to see Spock--yours--to figure out what's going on. I want to see them brought to justice. But I don't know much more than that. I'm not exactly being kept in the loop."
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Kirk pulled the padd close and started to write, eyes half closed.
It wasn't the ship that ordered Vulcan destroyed. That almost destroyed Earth. That killed my father and___
The pen scrawled off and he closed his eyes as his hand started to shake.
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"Jim." He said it firmly, not negating anything Kirk had said, just seeking focus. Calm. "Jim. I know. I know. Don't you think I... It's the ship we have to deal with now. To make sure he doesn't get away. To make sure justice is done. Spock couldn't leave him to die. It's not in his nature."
If Nero had killed Spock, Jim thought, what then? Would he be here now? No. He'd be dead. It was easy enough to argue for mercy when it wasn't your Earth, your Vulcan, your father, when everyone you loved had come through alive. Even when one of them lay shaking and ruined before you. Somehow, Jim had always been able to argue for mercy. Somehow, his anger had always, eventually, listened to the rest of him.
"I want to kill him for what he's done to you," he said, his voice low. "But he's not who we're dealing with now."
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He couldn't believe in mercy for Nero. He couldn't ever. He had no mercy for that fucker.
If his ship is anything like the Enterprise, she will follow Nero's command. Even if she isn't, he still commands her.
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"I don't think Nero will be commanding anything for a few days, at least," he said. "And the ship is making her own choices, now. She chose to let us go. She negotiated with Spock."
He squeezed Jim's hand lightly.
"I'm not arguing with you," he said. "I need to see Spock. I don't know what he plans. But Jim, I'm not going to let anything happen to you, or the ship. Trust me. We all might have died over there--we didn't. We're not going to fail now."
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I don't trust Nero or his ship.
He wanted them both dead.
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"And I don't see any reason why you should," he said. But mistrust and annihilation were two different things. "What do you want me to tell the acting captain?" he asked. "I'm going to track him down when I leave here. And then I'm going to come back and tell you what I know."
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I want Nero dead, so that I can sleep knowing he won't ever hurt another living soul.
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Sometimes that thing was him. Sometimes, it wasn't.
Jim needed to figure out which one Kirk needed, now.
He let the breath out, and nodded at Kirk, meeting his eyes. "I'll tell him," he said.
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Jim didn't want Nero dead.
It made something go cold and hard in the very center of him, like a hand of ice squeezing his guts. He looked away from Jim, staring down at his last words on the padd.
After everything that had happened, would Jim give mercy to Nero? Did Vulcan and its billions, did he and his father... mean so little to everyone, or did the Narada mean more?
The pen jerked as he started to write, leaving a line, then became solid words.
___Please leave.
Then he put the padd aside.
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But he had lost. For now. Kirk's anger was visceral, as if they were still linked, and Jim remembered belatedly that they were, and always had been. It clawed at him, that anger, but he stifled his own. He had fucked up. This wasn't the time, and now he'd taken part of Kirk's comfort from him.
Though maybe that anger would keep him going.
"Fine," he said. "But I'm coming back."
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Well, at least Jim getting him angry seemed to have burned off some of the drugs. Side effect was that his entire body felt sore as hell.
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But they weren't.
And Kirk would recover, and they would be able to talk, and this would get cleared up. And Kirk would realize he wasn't the kind of man who could condemn another to death. Not in cold blood.
He turned and left, not angry so much as drained and remorseful.
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It was just the sting of his healing tattoos on his face. That was all. That... was all.
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