Fic: From Here On Out
Title: From Here On Out
Author: skellig8
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Rating: Heavy R
Warnings: Mentions of mind rape, angst, sadness
Summary: Wrongly accused of cheating, Jim has to make his way through a hostile Enterprise and when the details of his encounter come out, reparations must be made.
A/N: I've made people cry with this! Myself included. Mostly because most Jim!whump is not extreme enough for me...
Jim was trapped in Hell. He railed against his captor’s hold fiercely, only to amuse him further. His every thought was contaminated, following along pathways of his mind. Jim went to his link with Spock, desperate to get help and to get out of here. The link slammed shut in front of him. He was shut off completely from everyone.
Jim’s mind slowed down, becoming sluggish, lazy, and aroused. Distantly, he was aware of his physical body being manipulated. His skin was bare, when did that happen? His memories became fuzzy at that point. How did he get here from the party? The last thing he remembered was talking with Spock and going to the bar for another drink. If he was here, where was Spock?
“Sp’ck,” Jim slurred, trying to open his eyes all the way; he had to get back to his Vulcan. It was important, even though he didn’t remember why. His body moved against red-hued skin. No, that wasn’t right. Spock felt red hot, but he wasn’t red. He was pale, with green.
His mind sunk deeper beneath the fog, even though all his senses were starting to scream no! No! NO! Something made his body relax, and he sighed and his eyes rolled back as a body crawled atop his own. It was a pleasant feeling, but something niggled at the back of his mind.
Light seared his vision; he blinked rapidly as his eyes got used to the light. He recognized the forms of people, but they were so bright. He knew them. He really did.
“What?” he heard his voice distantly, like he had cotton in his ears. “Spock?”
He couldn’t focus on Spock’s words, they moved so quickly out of his mouth. He couldn’t concentrate on them. He giggled, not sure why it was funny, but he felt funny.
Was it funny?
“Spock!” he called after the retreating figure.
He didn’t know much about what happened after that. Blurry shapes assaulted him and he was aware of a distant pain, not like a sharp cut, but a deep persistent ache. All he knew was that he had to get out of here and find Bones. Bones could fix this. Bones could fix anything. He pulled on some clothes, not sure if they were his or not.
“Bones,” he muttered, making his way out.
~*~*~
He didn’t know how long he walked or where he was. Buildings looked fuzzy under the dark sky. For a moment he was enraptured with the moon, staring upwards for a long period of time. He returned his gaze to the ground. Oh, he didn’t feel so good. He retched on the side of a building.
What a miserable existence.
He stood under a streetlamp and looked at his feet; it was hard to hold his head up. Dark red blood oozed out of his feet, so dark it was almost black in the faint light. Where was he again? He was supposed to be somewhere. It was important…
~*~
A droid officer was sent in to assess the situation: a strange man walking around with no shoes and only pants on. The man walking around seemed dazed and confused.
“Citizen,” the droid approached. “Identify yourself.”
Jim turned to the voice speaking to him. He was confused.
“Do you understand, Citizen?”
“Bones?”
“Does not compute, engaging audio record,” was the droids mechanical voice. “Citizen, are you in need of medical assistance?”
Jim only heard the word medical. Bones was medical. “Yes,” he nodded vigorously, stumbling when he nodded too hard and lost his balance. “I need Bones to fix me up,” he slurred.
The droid called for medical assistance and engaged protocols to keep the distressed man calm.
They packed him carefully in the medical unit and he was carted off to the hospital.
“What’s your name, son?” one of the older male EMTs asked.
Jim thought carefully. Where was he again? He flashed back to a time that should never be spoken of again. “JT,” he answered slowly, softly. They wanted to know his name, he needed to protect them, they were relying on him to keep them all safe.
“Okay, JT,” the man soothed. “We’re taking you to the hospital because you’ve been
through the wringer. Your vitals are way out of whack and we are going to figure out
what’s wrong, okay?”
“Did Kevin make it?” he asked the older man. “I carried him to the ships, is he okay?”
“Who’s Kevin, JT?”
“They came for his family. I pulled him out of the crowd. His older sister came with us,
but she didn’t make it.” He shuddered.
“What happened to her?”
“They got her.”
“Who got her?”
But Jim remained silent until they reached the hospital. He was whisked into a room in the ER, though it was buzzing with activity.
“This is JT; he was called in because he was wandering the streets. No ID, but his vitals are all over the place. He has all the symptoms of being drugged. I don’t know, he was talking on the way over, but he’s stopped.”
~*~*~
Jim didn’t know much else until he was admitted to the hospital and moved upstairs. He had been poked and prodded in the ER, the doctor’s tricorder beeping over him.
“JT?” The doctor spoke with him. He only knew it wasn’t Bones.
“Yes?”
“Nice to meet you, JT. I don’t know if you remember, but I’m Dr. Farley. I don’t know how much you’re going to remember of this, but here it is. You’re in acute psychic shock and you’ve been hyped up on some sort of drug. The tests for that will be back soon. Do you know where you are?”
“Sickbay,” he uttered. These guys picked him up, didn’t they? They should know.
“Do you have anyone you can call?”
“No,” and he was silent for awhile. He never had anyone to call.
“JT?”
“Yeah?” he looked back at the fuzzy doctor.
“You sure there’s no one?”
“No, they killed Auntie Karen and Uncle Joe. No one will be there on Earth when we get
there.”
“JT, we are on Earth. This is San Francisco.”
Jim looked at him with confusion. The doctor sighed. “How about we try in a little bit, huh? Maybe it will make more sense.”
It wasn’t a criminal case, so “JT” wasn’t checked for prints or warrants right away. They hadn’t found anything on a record and he was stable, so there was no rush. The doctor was reluctant to give his patient anything, especially during such an acute case of shock. The majority of it would pass, so he would be able to find the damage. Then he could work on a treatment plan and find out who his newest patient was.
~*~*~
They ran his fingerprints through the system later and soon enough he was whisked away to Starfleet Medical. The next two weeks passed in a blur for Jim. He passed each day with a little more coherency and active consciousness. He remembered being ill, throwing up and the massive headaches. But most of all, he began to remember flashes of what had happened to him.
The pain settled in on him, and he retched constantly; he could not keep his food down. The pink plastic kidney bowl was his constant companion. What was worse were the seizures. He cried through the pain, disassociation, and vertigo. Warm hands in rubber gloves with soft voices stroked his forehead in comfort as they injected anti-seizure medication and made sure he didn’t bite his tongue through the worst ones.
He regained enough coherence to be discharged from the hospital. He sat outside the medical building in a borrowed set of scrubs and hospital loafers, clutching the white bag of medicine to his chest. He had nowhere to go. His emergency contacts hadn’t come through. His mother was on a field mission in space; she wasn’t home. He checked his messages before leaving. Bones’ messages went from angry to disappointed and finally to pleading for him to pick up the phone. He could deal with an angry Bones, but a disappointed one he had no defenses against.
The rest was hate mail, so he deleted all of it.
There were no messages from Spock.
~*~*~
He had about a week of shore leave left. The Enterprise had a short period of time to make repairs before they had to get back out into deep space. They had cracked a warp engine, and Scotty had jerry-rigged it to keep it stable until they were able to get to the closest starbase or Earth if they could manage it. They hadn’t been far from Earth and decided to dock there and make nice with the admiralty. Part of that was attending diplomatic parties and schmoozing, buttering up famous scientists and getting new recruits.
Jim put Scotty on a feasible timetable to achieve his desired modifications on the Enterprise’s engine room while they were there. He wondered how far the man had gotten.
People started to recognize him outside Starfleet Medical and take photographs. Dammit. He hoped the person he called would show up soon.
A black Starfleet-issued hover car pulled up and the door opened. Admiral Pike was sitting there waiting for him.
“Hi, Chris,” Jim said in a low voice as he got into the hover car.
Pike was taken aback at the young man getting into the car. So unlike the exuberant youth he had known just a short while ago.
“Oh, Jim,” Pike murmured and then was flashing back to the memory of a younger Jim, much like this one, so very thin and broken. He was quiet then too.
Jim knew how to deal with this condition. He had lost a great amount of weight in the hospital, and had a constant feeling of fatigue. Weariness set into his bones as a deep ache, one he knew was probably a psychological reaction to his broken mind. Spock had shown him how to center himself. What was once a little rough around the edges now lay shattered as broken glass. Spock wouldn’t want this; he had been irreparably broken. “Damaged goods” was a phrase he often used.
“You’ll stay with me until you have to go back,” Pike said softly.
“Okay,” Jim nodded looking out the window, clutching the door handle like a lifeline.
~*~*~
Aboard the Enterprise, the bridge crew wasn’t disobedient, but they regarded him with a cold shoulder and questioning things when they could. Overall, Jim’s patience was growing thin, but then, he felt the deep guilt he could not explain. They believed the worst of him.
So he kept silent as much as he could. His trials of trying to get Spock to speak to him had failed miserably and came with the extra whiplash of Uhura’s sharp tongue. Even Bones wouldn’t look at him without disappointment. He thought their friendship was stronger than that. He thought they realized his loyalty. They didn’t have faith in his integrity, or his person. Hadn’t he proved otherwise? Didn’t they know him? He wasn’t this shallow.
~*~*~
There were few he found were sympathetic with him. One was Spock’s older counterpart, also known as Ambassador Selek, who looked at him sadly as he explained what limited amount he knew.
“What was his name?” Selek asked.
Jim’s brows scrunched together, indistinct flashes passed before his eyes. “I…I don’t know.”
He closed his eyes tightly, and tried to concentrate on the other’s face. The closer he got to the memories, the more his body felt weak. He felt the memory fading once again.
He opened his eyes to his ceiling. What?
“Jim!” came the voice from the console. “Jim!”
He pulled himself off the floor using the chair and the desk, getting resettled. “Hey, old
man,” he returned as he looked at the worried visage of his friend.
“Jim, what happened?”
He rubbed his mouth, tasting copper. “Seizure, I think.”
“You must send me your medical files. Psychic trauma is nothing to disregard. I will have a Vulcan healer examine them,” Selek instructed. “I believe there is more the situation than it seems. It may have been a premeditated attack.”
“I hope you’re right,” Jim felt tears prick his eyes. “It’s all the hope I’ve got. Spock left me, my friends left me. I don’t think I’m going to survive this.”
“I will help you figure this out, Jim. Do not give up just yet.”
~*~*~*~*~*~
The best treatment that Jim got over the next few months was indifference. Besides communications with Selek, few people spoke to him kindly when he was off-duty. Scotty was amongst them. Scotty had confessed during a night of drinking, “Aye, I remember exile. Wha’s worse is you have to do it amongst those who condemned you. I dunna know what’s worse though; with those who know and punish ye every day or bein’ alone with yer thoughts.”
That about summed it up.
~*~
Jim didn’t try to think about what happened, he couldn’t get more than the few brief hints that he had seen over and over. If he concentrated harder he ended up with vicious migraines or seizures, sometimes both.
They had a year left of the mission and he and Bones were barely back on speaking terms. He was surprised when his primary care went to M’Benga, who did not hold a grudge against him, but was very concerned for his captain’s health. It was stable, but overall it was poor. He had been worse before, not like he didn’t deserve it either. Despite treatment and medication Jim was still woefully thin; Jim forgot to eat or he just didn’t feel hungry. He had regressed back into the remembered days of famine.
M’Benga tried supervising his meals at least a few times a week if there was nothing else going on. “You must eat. Your body needs food to survive.”
Jim had looked up at him and gave him an inscrutable stare. “Lies,” he whispered vehemently and cleared his tray, going off on his own.
~*~*~
There was a blinking light on his console when he returned to his quarters at the end of shift. A message. Selek’s face popped up as he played the message.
“We got him, Jim. We got him.”
And he cried.
~*~*~
The Enterprise was called back to Earth nearly three months before the end of their mission. Jim’s hands shook as he stared at the court summons. He would be called upon to testify against a known member of a terrorist organization that was quite anti-Federation. He could finally be healed as well.
Starfleet Intelligence had been alerted to the terrorist wing earlier, but a certain call from an Ambassador had put them on a hot trail. They had caught the man, Mehal Ohrst, part of the Separatist movement in the planets that were not yet part of the Federation or the Empires. Jim stared at the mug shot of the nearly crimson-hued man with dark black hair and eyes. Quite attractive. The man’s MO was meeting diplomats and those in position of power, or in his case, hero status, and infiltrating their minds. Out of the seven known people three had survived the attacks. Jim and Admiral Rodgers lived through the psychic trauma, the other had not been so lucky and was currently undergoing treatment in Starfleet’s sanitarium.
~*~
Spock had been making plans to return to New Vulcan with his father when he heard the Enterprise would be returning earlier than expected. He regarded Jim this past year and a half and had been most distressed by his Captain’s failing health. He had kept a professional front as noted by Nyota, and had done so to no detrimental effect. The rest of the crew would enjoy a three month shore leave before the Enterprise would be recomissioned.
Jim stayed on the Enterprise until the court date, which was two days after they docked. His part in the trial was small; they needed his testimony and medical records submitted as evidence. His eyes traveled to the public seats where he met the soft eyes of Ambassador Selek. Reassured, he gave his statement with confidence. After his day in court the news hit the nets while the jury was convening. Flashes went off in his face as he left the courthouse, his face posted in every major news source; even the tabloids had some interesting information.
~*~*~
Jim was assigned a Betazoid healer to see if any repairs could be made to his mental health. Jim had briefly learned techniques when he had returned from that god-awful wasteland of Tarsus, and more when he was learning what it would was to be bonded to Spock. Shields were almost always in place. When the Betazoid requested he loosen his shields they came down a little too quickly. The healer passed out from his projection from three feet away. He pushed his feelings down once more and they tried again to the same effect.
“I’m sorry I cannot help you,” the black eyes of his healer looked back at him. “How strange that man’s body is so small, but his capacity for suffering is immense.”
Ambassador Selek heard and sent for a Vulcan healer, one that was part of the Vulcan Embassy and was there for the Vulcans temporarily settled on Earth. The Vulcan kept her composure for much longer than her predecessor, but the combined traumas were enough for her to cry out. The pain of a fractured bond, of everything that happened had overwhelmed her.
“I am not the best candidate for your healing, Captain Kirk,” she spoke levelly, her composure back under control. “I recommend in your case to find an Adept from Gol.”
It would take time for that to happen, with the tragedy of Vulcan and many of the Adepts occupied with projects on New Vulcan. Selek helped as much as he could, but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of one. Selek himself tried to help with the mental healing as much as he could. But Jim quickly put a stop to it when he found out the old man wept at the state of Jim’s mind. Jim closed his mind, muffling it for those who could hear its distress. He comforted Selek as best he could.
“Guess I have good coping mechanisms…either that, I must’ve run out of tears.” It came as no surprise that those words didn’t comfort Selek at all.
~*~*~
With another two months of shore leave Jim returned to Iowa to reconsider his options. He didn’t want to work on an Enterprise that hated him. He didn’t tell anyone where he was going or give hints to where he would be staying. He was world-weary again and back to his old habits. He drank himself to the bottom of countless bottles and got into as many fights as he could to make the outside match the inside.
Sheriff Martin took pity on Winona’s boy and often put him up under his supervision in the jail cell or drove the young man home. Jim felt truly, utterly broken for the first time. He must be cursed; things he touched or got involved with broke or died. He knew he couldn’t get away from this one as well.
He had run from a childhood that was shrouded by grief, taking reprieve in the colony of Tarsus. Those scars he still bore. He had run from a troubled existence and the shadow of his father when he joined Starfleet only to lose his best friends and the respect of his crew. Now, most of all, he wanted to run from the constant agony of a deteriorating Vulcan bond. But he couldn’t run anymore, he was too tired of running.
Part II
Author: skellig8
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Rating: Heavy R
Warnings: Mentions of mind rape, angst, sadness
Summary: Wrongly accused of cheating, Jim has to make his way through a hostile Enterprise and when the details of his encounter come out, reparations must be made.
A/N: I've made people cry with this! Myself included. Mostly because most Jim!whump is not extreme enough for me...
Jim was trapped in Hell. He railed against his captor’s hold fiercely, only to amuse him further. His every thought was contaminated, following along pathways of his mind. Jim went to his link with Spock, desperate to get help and to get out of here. The link slammed shut in front of him. He was shut off completely from everyone.
Jim’s mind slowed down, becoming sluggish, lazy, and aroused. Distantly, he was aware of his physical body being manipulated. His skin was bare, when did that happen? His memories became fuzzy at that point. How did he get here from the party? The last thing he remembered was talking with Spock and going to the bar for another drink. If he was here, where was Spock?
“Sp’ck,” Jim slurred, trying to open his eyes all the way; he had to get back to his Vulcan. It was important, even though he didn’t remember why. His body moved against red-hued skin. No, that wasn’t right. Spock felt red hot, but he wasn’t red. He was pale, with green.
His mind sunk deeper beneath the fog, even though all his senses were starting to scream no! No! NO! Something made his body relax, and he sighed and his eyes rolled back as a body crawled atop his own. It was a pleasant feeling, but something niggled at the back of his mind.
Light seared his vision; he blinked rapidly as his eyes got used to the light. He recognized the forms of people, but they were so bright. He knew them. He really did.
“What?” he heard his voice distantly, like he had cotton in his ears. “Spock?”
He couldn’t focus on Spock’s words, they moved so quickly out of his mouth. He couldn’t concentrate on them. He giggled, not sure why it was funny, but he felt funny.
Was it funny?
“Spock!” he called after the retreating figure.
He didn’t know much about what happened after that. Blurry shapes assaulted him and he was aware of a distant pain, not like a sharp cut, but a deep persistent ache. All he knew was that he had to get out of here and find Bones. Bones could fix this. Bones could fix anything. He pulled on some clothes, not sure if they were his or not.
“Bones,” he muttered, making his way out.
~*~*~
He didn’t know how long he walked or where he was. Buildings looked fuzzy under the dark sky. For a moment he was enraptured with the moon, staring upwards for a long period of time. He returned his gaze to the ground. Oh, he didn’t feel so good. He retched on the side of a building.
What a miserable existence.
He stood under a streetlamp and looked at his feet; it was hard to hold his head up. Dark red blood oozed out of his feet, so dark it was almost black in the faint light. Where was he again? He was supposed to be somewhere. It was important…
~*~
A droid officer was sent in to assess the situation: a strange man walking around with no shoes and only pants on. The man walking around seemed dazed and confused.
“Citizen,” the droid approached. “Identify yourself.”
Jim turned to the voice speaking to him. He was confused.
“Do you understand, Citizen?”
“Bones?”
“Does not compute, engaging audio record,” was the droids mechanical voice. “Citizen, are you in need of medical assistance?”
Jim only heard the word medical. Bones was medical. “Yes,” he nodded vigorously, stumbling when he nodded too hard and lost his balance. “I need Bones to fix me up,” he slurred.
The droid called for medical assistance and engaged protocols to keep the distressed man calm.
They packed him carefully in the medical unit and he was carted off to the hospital.
“What’s your name, son?” one of the older male EMTs asked.
Jim thought carefully. Where was he again? He flashed back to a time that should never be spoken of again. “JT,” he answered slowly, softly. They wanted to know his name, he needed to protect them, they were relying on him to keep them all safe.
“Okay, JT,” the man soothed. “We’re taking you to the hospital because you’ve been
through the wringer. Your vitals are way out of whack and we are going to figure out
what’s wrong, okay?”
“Did Kevin make it?” he asked the older man. “I carried him to the ships, is he okay?”
“Who’s Kevin, JT?”
“They came for his family. I pulled him out of the crowd. His older sister came with us,
but she didn’t make it.” He shuddered.
“What happened to her?”
“They got her.”
“Who got her?”
But Jim remained silent until they reached the hospital. He was whisked into a room in the ER, though it was buzzing with activity.
“This is JT; he was called in because he was wandering the streets. No ID, but his vitals are all over the place. He has all the symptoms of being drugged. I don’t know, he was talking on the way over, but he’s stopped.”
~*~*~
Jim didn’t know much else until he was admitted to the hospital and moved upstairs. He had been poked and prodded in the ER, the doctor’s tricorder beeping over him.
“JT?” The doctor spoke with him. He only knew it wasn’t Bones.
“Yes?”
“Nice to meet you, JT. I don’t know if you remember, but I’m Dr. Farley. I don’t know how much you’re going to remember of this, but here it is. You’re in acute psychic shock and you’ve been hyped up on some sort of drug. The tests for that will be back soon. Do you know where you are?”
“Sickbay,” he uttered. These guys picked him up, didn’t they? They should know.
“Do you have anyone you can call?”
“No,” and he was silent for awhile. He never had anyone to call.
“JT?”
“Yeah?” he looked back at the fuzzy doctor.
“You sure there’s no one?”
“No, they killed Auntie Karen and Uncle Joe. No one will be there on Earth when we get
there.”
“JT, we are on Earth. This is San Francisco.”
Jim looked at him with confusion. The doctor sighed. “How about we try in a little bit, huh? Maybe it will make more sense.”
It wasn’t a criminal case, so “JT” wasn’t checked for prints or warrants right away. They hadn’t found anything on a record and he was stable, so there was no rush. The doctor was reluctant to give his patient anything, especially during such an acute case of shock. The majority of it would pass, so he would be able to find the damage. Then he could work on a treatment plan and find out who his newest patient was.
~*~*~
They ran his fingerprints through the system later and soon enough he was whisked away to Starfleet Medical. The next two weeks passed in a blur for Jim. He passed each day with a little more coherency and active consciousness. He remembered being ill, throwing up and the massive headaches. But most of all, he began to remember flashes of what had happened to him.
The pain settled in on him, and he retched constantly; he could not keep his food down. The pink plastic kidney bowl was his constant companion. What was worse were the seizures. He cried through the pain, disassociation, and vertigo. Warm hands in rubber gloves with soft voices stroked his forehead in comfort as they injected anti-seizure medication and made sure he didn’t bite his tongue through the worst ones.
He regained enough coherence to be discharged from the hospital. He sat outside the medical building in a borrowed set of scrubs and hospital loafers, clutching the white bag of medicine to his chest. He had nowhere to go. His emergency contacts hadn’t come through. His mother was on a field mission in space; she wasn’t home. He checked his messages before leaving. Bones’ messages went from angry to disappointed and finally to pleading for him to pick up the phone. He could deal with an angry Bones, but a disappointed one he had no defenses against.
The rest was hate mail, so he deleted all of it.
There were no messages from Spock.
~*~*~
He had about a week of shore leave left. The Enterprise had a short period of time to make repairs before they had to get back out into deep space. They had cracked a warp engine, and Scotty had jerry-rigged it to keep it stable until they were able to get to the closest starbase or Earth if they could manage it. They hadn’t been far from Earth and decided to dock there and make nice with the admiralty. Part of that was attending diplomatic parties and schmoozing, buttering up famous scientists and getting new recruits.
Jim put Scotty on a feasible timetable to achieve his desired modifications on the Enterprise’s engine room while they were there. He wondered how far the man had gotten.
People started to recognize him outside Starfleet Medical and take photographs. Dammit. He hoped the person he called would show up soon.
A black Starfleet-issued hover car pulled up and the door opened. Admiral Pike was sitting there waiting for him.
“Hi, Chris,” Jim said in a low voice as he got into the hover car.
Pike was taken aback at the young man getting into the car. So unlike the exuberant youth he had known just a short while ago.
“Oh, Jim,” Pike murmured and then was flashing back to the memory of a younger Jim, much like this one, so very thin and broken. He was quiet then too.
Jim knew how to deal with this condition. He had lost a great amount of weight in the hospital, and had a constant feeling of fatigue. Weariness set into his bones as a deep ache, one he knew was probably a psychological reaction to his broken mind. Spock had shown him how to center himself. What was once a little rough around the edges now lay shattered as broken glass. Spock wouldn’t want this; he had been irreparably broken. “Damaged goods” was a phrase he often used.
“You’ll stay with me until you have to go back,” Pike said softly.
“Okay,” Jim nodded looking out the window, clutching the door handle like a lifeline.
~*~*~
Aboard the Enterprise, the bridge crew wasn’t disobedient, but they regarded him with a cold shoulder and questioning things when they could. Overall, Jim’s patience was growing thin, but then, he felt the deep guilt he could not explain. They believed the worst of him.
So he kept silent as much as he could. His trials of trying to get Spock to speak to him had failed miserably and came with the extra whiplash of Uhura’s sharp tongue. Even Bones wouldn’t look at him without disappointment. He thought their friendship was stronger than that. He thought they realized his loyalty. They didn’t have faith in his integrity, or his person. Hadn’t he proved otherwise? Didn’t they know him? He wasn’t this shallow.
~*~*~
There were few he found were sympathetic with him. One was Spock’s older counterpart, also known as Ambassador Selek, who looked at him sadly as he explained what limited amount he knew.
“What was his name?” Selek asked.
Jim’s brows scrunched together, indistinct flashes passed before his eyes. “I…I don’t know.”
He closed his eyes tightly, and tried to concentrate on the other’s face. The closer he got to the memories, the more his body felt weak. He felt the memory fading once again.
He opened his eyes to his ceiling. What?
“Jim!” came the voice from the console. “Jim!”
He pulled himself off the floor using the chair and the desk, getting resettled. “Hey, old
man,” he returned as he looked at the worried visage of his friend.
“Jim, what happened?”
He rubbed his mouth, tasting copper. “Seizure, I think.”
“You must send me your medical files. Psychic trauma is nothing to disregard. I will have a Vulcan healer examine them,” Selek instructed. “I believe there is more the situation than it seems. It may have been a premeditated attack.”
“I hope you’re right,” Jim felt tears prick his eyes. “It’s all the hope I’ve got. Spock left me, my friends left me. I don’t think I’m going to survive this.”
“I will help you figure this out, Jim. Do not give up just yet.”
~*~*~*~*~*~
The best treatment that Jim got over the next few months was indifference. Besides communications with Selek, few people spoke to him kindly when he was off-duty. Scotty was amongst them. Scotty had confessed during a night of drinking, “Aye, I remember exile. Wha’s worse is you have to do it amongst those who condemned you. I dunna know what’s worse though; with those who know and punish ye every day or bein’ alone with yer thoughts.”
That about summed it up.
~*~
Jim didn’t try to think about what happened, he couldn’t get more than the few brief hints that he had seen over and over. If he concentrated harder he ended up with vicious migraines or seizures, sometimes both.
They had a year left of the mission and he and Bones were barely back on speaking terms. He was surprised when his primary care went to M’Benga, who did not hold a grudge against him, but was very concerned for his captain’s health. It was stable, but overall it was poor. He had been worse before, not like he didn’t deserve it either. Despite treatment and medication Jim was still woefully thin; Jim forgot to eat or he just didn’t feel hungry. He had regressed back into the remembered days of famine.
M’Benga tried supervising his meals at least a few times a week if there was nothing else going on. “You must eat. Your body needs food to survive.”
Jim had looked up at him and gave him an inscrutable stare. “Lies,” he whispered vehemently and cleared his tray, going off on his own.
~*~*~
There was a blinking light on his console when he returned to his quarters at the end of shift. A message. Selek’s face popped up as he played the message.
“We got him, Jim. We got him.”
And he cried.
~*~*~
The Enterprise was called back to Earth nearly three months before the end of their mission. Jim’s hands shook as he stared at the court summons. He would be called upon to testify against a known member of a terrorist organization that was quite anti-Federation. He could finally be healed as well.
Starfleet Intelligence had been alerted to the terrorist wing earlier, but a certain call from an Ambassador had put them on a hot trail. They had caught the man, Mehal Ohrst, part of the Separatist movement in the planets that were not yet part of the Federation or the Empires. Jim stared at the mug shot of the nearly crimson-hued man with dark black hair and eyes. Quite attractive. The man’s MO was meeting diplomats and those in position of power, or in his case, hero status, and infiltrating their minds. Out of the seven known people three had survived the attacks. Jim and Admiral Rodgers lived through the psychic trauma, the other had not been so lucky and was currently undergoing treatment in Starfleet’s sanitarium.
~*~
Spock had been making plans to return to New Vulcan with his father when he heard the Enterprise would be returning earlier than expected. He regarded Jim this past year and a half and had been most distressed by his Captain’s failing health. He had kept a professional front as noted by Nyota, and had done so to no detrimental effect. The rest of the crew would enjoy a three month shore leave before the Enterprise would be recomissioned.
Jim stayed on the Enterprise until the court date, which was two days after they docked. His part in the trial was small; they needed his testimony and medical records submitted as evidence. His eyes traveled to the public seats where he met the soft eyes of Ambassador Selek. Reassured, he gave his statement with confidence. After his day in court the news hit the nets while the jury was convening. Flashes went off in his face as he left the courthouse, his face posted in every major news source; even the tabloids had some interesting information.
~*~*~
Jim was assigned a Betazoid healer to see if any repairs could be made to his mental health. Jim had briefly learned techniques when he had returned from that god-awful wasteland of Tarsus, and more when he was learning what it would was to be bonded to Spock. Shields were almost always in place. When the Betazoid requested he loosen his shields they came down a little too quickly. The healer passed out from his projection from three feet away. He pushed his feelings down once more and they tried again to the same effect.
“I’m sorry I cannot help you,” the black eyes of his healer looked back at him. “How strange that man’s body is so small, but his capacity for suffering is immense.”
Ambassador Selek heard and sent for a Vulcan healer, one that was part of the Vulcan Embassy and was there for the Vulcans temporarily settled on Earth. The Vulcan kept her composure for much longer than her predecessor, but the combined traumas were enough for her to cry out. The pain of a fractured bond, of everything that happened had overwhelmed her.
“I am not the best candidate for your healing, Captain Kirk,” she spoke levelly, her composure back under control. “I recommend in your case to find an Adept from Gol.”
It would take time for that to happen, with the tragedy of Vulcan and many of the Adepts occupied with projects on New Vulcan. Selek helped as much as he could, but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of one. Selek himself tried to help with the mental healing as much as he could. But Jim quickly put a stop to it when he found out the old man wept at the state of Jim’s mind. Jim closed his mind, muffling it for those who could hear its distress. He comforted Selek as best he could.
“Guess I have good coping mechanisms…either that, I must’ve run out of tears.” It came as no surprise that those words didn’t comfort Selek at all.
~*~*~
With another two months of shore leave Jim returned to Iowa to reconsider his options. He didn’t want to work on an Enterprise that hated him. He didn’t tell anyone where he was going or give hints to where he would be staying. He was world-weary again and back to his old habits. He drank himself to the bottom of countless bottles and got into as many fights as he could to make the outside match the inside.
Sheriff Martin took pity on Winona’s boy and often put him up under his supervision in the jail cell or drove the young man home. Jim felt truly, utterly broken for the first time. He must be cursed; things he touched or got involved with broke or died. He knew he couldn’t get away from this one as well.
He had run from a childhood that was shrouded by grief, taking reprieve in the colony of Tarsus. Those scars he still bore. He had run from a troubled existence and the shadow of his father when he joined Starfleet only to lose his best friends and the respect of his crew. Now, most of all, he wanted to run from the constant agony of a deteriorating Vulcan bond. But he couldn’t run anymore, he was too tired of running.
Part II