Reboot Fic: Fire Dancing 3/4 (Draws VIII)

[syredronning]

Title: Fire Dancing (Draws VIII)
Author: Acidqueen
Series: Reboot aka ST:XI aka AOS - Draws Series
Codes: Pike/Kirk/McCoy and other pairings; several original characters of various genders
Rating: NC-17 for some hot scenes; warning: teacher/student relationship
Word count: complete 41.000, this part 10.800

Part 1 - Part 2 -



It's on the evening two days later when Pike, adorned in full uniform, descends a magtrain and walks down long suburban lanes cluttered with small houses until he reaches his goal. The house in front of him is illuminated, the laughter of children resounding from inside, and for a moment Pike walks up and down the pavement, not looking forward to this visit, but feeling obligated to make it. At last, he walks to the door and rings the bell. It's almost instantly opened by the landlady herself.

"Good evening, Mrs. Esteban," Pike says and shakes her hand.

"Good evening, sir," she says with smile. "Thank you for visiting us. Please, come in."

The household is in a mildly chaotic state, which could be expected from two small children and a baby. He chucks out of his coat and gets introduced to everyone he doesn't know yet -Esteban's sister, who's here to help with the children, and Mrs. Esteban's old mother, who sits in a large arm chair and presides over the living room like a queen.

Between making conversation with the captain's family and entertaining the old lady, he offers himself as the playground for the two-year-old son and tries to lend an ear to the babbling of the four-year-old daughter. It dispels some of his tension to be so readily included into the chaotic, but relaxed atmosphere. There's coffee and tea, bagels and sweets, and some low music in the background that's easily drowned by the children's voices. He's shown the newborn once the girl is awake, and delivers the expected words of praise. He stays for an hour, then gets ready to leave. When Mrs. Esteban is in the kitchen he seizes the moment to have a few private words with her, asking if there's anything he can help with.

"No sir, thank you, sir. My only wish is that Joe will come home alive and healthy," she says, and for a brief moment he gets a glimpse at the sadness behind the oh-so-happy family picture. "I know that even a scientific mission has its risks, but he trusts in you, so I do the same. You wouldn't send him somewhere really dangerous, would you?"

"We always try to minimize the risks," he states, trying not to think of his words to Esteban two months ago.

"This is a high-risk mission that could take more than two years. I offer it to you because we think you and your crew are the best for this job, but I only take volunteers. You've got a young family -"

"And I'm a Starfleet officer," Esteban replied instantly. "This is a unique mission, and I'm honored to be offered the command for it. I accept."

"If anything goes wrong… nothing of your ship is to fall into the hand of the Borg. Nothing and nobody." There would be no evacuation - no survivors in a crew of a hundred and fifty. "The Borg are too dangerous to supply them with even the slightest information on humanity."

There was a moment of hesitation, of second thoughts in the captain who'd just celebrated his thirty-fourth birthday. "I understand, sir," Esteban finally said. "I await your mission orders."

Pike had been on the receiving side of similar orders a few times, had even gone as far as to initiate self-destruct twice. There is a strange dichotomy in valuing the life of every single crew member by adhering to the "nobody left behind" policy, and still being able to sentence everyone onboard to certain death for a higher good. It's possibly the biggest burden a captain ever has to bear, and after the Narada he hadn't wanted to be in that place anymore. Nogura had offered to talk to Esteban in his stead, but this is Pike's task force and he'd be the one to issue the orders, even if he cleared them with his team. So it was only fair to talk with Esteban in person.

Meeting Esteban's family now, Pike deeply regrets his offer. Neither fathers nor mothers should be out in space, not for missions like his. Esteban is tracking a dangerous species in an area close to the Romulan borders, a region barely charted by the Federation. Even if everything goes right, the man might just come back in time for his youngest daughter's second birthday. He'd never see the baby girl besides on photographs and recordings, never get to see her first steps in reality.

His wife would hopefully never learn that her husband lied to her regarding the mission, and would never fall apart during an official funeral ceremony, would never walk over to Pike to tear his uniform, accusing him of sending her husband on a suicide mission. The visions playing out in Pike's mind are breathtakingly real, reverberations of scenes he's witnessed during other ceremonies. His chest suddenly aching in phantom pain, he repeats his offer for support in case of any needs, and then hurriedly leaves the house, hastening down the darkening streets until he reaches the magtrain for the trip back to the city main station. A readily captured cab soon spills him out in front of a large apartment house, and he travels up to the twentieth level, opening the door with his rarely used key code.

"John?" The apartment is quiet but some of the lights are on, signaling that the owner is at home.

"Hey, Chris!" Farnham appears at the other end of the corridor in all his naked glory, hair a little tousled. "You didn't call, did you? Because I didn't hear anything."

"No, I didn't," Pike says, the pain in his chest still lingering, his lungs hurting as if he'd run a mile.

"Anything wrong?" Farnham asks with a frown as he's in front of him, putting his warm palm on Pike's cheek.

"Just need some company." Pike captures the hand, placing a kiss on the fingers. They smell of shower gel and comfortingly manly.

A flicker of hesitation crosses his friend's face. "I'm not alone," Farnham says with a nod to the bedroom door.

Pike freezes, briefly closing his eyes. "Ah. Of course. Sorry I showed up without calling." He drops the hand. "I'll leave -"

Farnham's hand on his upper arm stops him. "No, you won't," his friend says firmly. "If you need to talk, then I'll get the guy out of the way and we talk. But if you'd rather have some distraction, then join me."

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"At least have a look at him. He's blindfolded, he won't see you. Come on." Pike allows himself getting dragged to the bedroom. The lights are low, a few candles burning. On the bed lies a young man, spread-eagled with his wrists and ankles tied to the corners by white ropes, a black scarf wrapped over his eyes. The position emphasizes the guy's well-built muscles and from between his legs, a large erection juts out towards the ceiling.

It does look inviting, Pike has to admit.

"He'd love to have another pair of hands on his body," Farnham whispers. "And since I found him in your club, I think it's only fair to share." He licks along Pike's neck, his hands starting to open the coat. "If you feel like talking afterwards, we'll talk."

One hand moves to his groin, nudging his rather deflated dick through the fabric. Pike takes a deep breath, dark mood and sudden arousal battling for a second, then gives in and strips.

They don't talk that night.

*

"I'm in the city and wanted to visit you," Nat says, her bright face filling Pike's screen. "I've got fruit with me, with best greetings from Tom."

"It's a bad time, I'm almost on my way to the desert."

"I'll be with you in half an hour, Chris." She pokes a forefinger against the tiny communicator cam to underline her point. "I'll see you then."

Seeing his usual time table for Saturday mornings is disrupted, Pike sighs. With a wistful gaze to his already packed bag with the riding boots on top, he goes to kill the time with some paperwork from his endless backlog.

"Knock-knock," Nat says when she walks into his office twenty-five minutes later, a medium-sized box in her hand.

"Full of fruit?" Pike asks when he gets up and takes it. "Might turn foul before I manage to eat them all."

"Feel free to give some to your lovely assistant, who's very good at hindering any attempts to reach you in the office." Nat twinkles.

"I might." Pike shows her to the kitchen, preparing two strong cups of coffee. "So, how's marriage?"

"Great," Nat says.

"You look like it," Pike says, which is pure understatement considering the happy glow on her face. She's dressed a little less organic and more on the fashion side, probably Robert's positive influence, and he wonders if he should tease her about her obvious wrinkle removal, but doesn't. After all, he might end up under the same laser in not too long.

"And you go for a hike every weekend?" she asks

"Pretty much, yes."

"Alone?"

"Got nobody to come with me," he says. "And don't dare to suggest John, he hates the desert. Too hot, too dry, too boring, and horses aren't comfortable enough."

"I know."

"Truth be told, it's good to ride alone." Pike generously puts sugar and milk into her cup before offering it to Nat, trying to ignore her inquisitive gaze.

"Still always without your communicator? If anything happens -"

"I've got an emergency transmitter with me, and if I'm needed that much, they can always locate me and send a shuttle."

Nat makes some non-committal sound. "You're living in extremes right now. Working twelve hours a day all through the week, and then fleeing into the desert. I even heard you've started to attend official receptions. That's so unusual for you."

Pike cradles his cup, meeting her eyes. "Anything wrong with all that?"

"Not sure yet," she answers, taking a sip. "Do you miss them?"

"Who wouldn't?"

She groans. "I hate it when you're like this."

"What would you have me say?" Pike says, a rhetorical question.

"Well, you could really talk to me for a change, Chris. Share the things you've got on your mind…"

As she keeps speaking, his mind suddenly drifts to the last private recording his lovers had sent together. Due to a technical glitch, all he'd received had been the second half of Jim's birthday session. A birthday that is never really celebrated except for a small ceremony for lost comrades on the Enterprise, and then the doc spending all day to get Jim's mind off the actual event. It was the heaviest and most intense pain play he'd ever witnessed between the two, the full program of tight bondage, whipping, old-fashioned needles and even cuttings with a knife, Jim's harsh breathing and whimpering moans a heart-breaking layer above all of it. When the doc had fucked Jim into an orgasm at last, it had been wrenched from the captain just as harshly as everything else, more pain than pleasure. The recording had ended quite abruptly and left Pike a little irritated, a disconnected voyeur in a private Jim&Bones scene he hadn't been a part of. Not very helpful for his mood of late.

"Do you even listen, Chris?" Nat suddenly admonishes him, poking his upper arm with her finger.

"Not really," he admits solemnly, emptying his cup. "I really need to get on the road now, Nat. Thanks for your visit."

"All right - I know when I'm getting thrown out." His friend sighs theatrically and slips from the bar stool. "Take care," she says and hugs him. "Don't want to hear about you getting lost in the desert."

"The desert is the least dangerous place for me," Pike says. He manages a smile when she's at the door. "My regards to your husband. I still think he was crazy to sell his apartment, but I'm glad he sold it to me."

"I'll tell him that. See you." She winks and leaves Pike with the pile of fruit and the absolute determination to flee next time she announces a surprise visit on his cherished Saturday morning.

*

His easy words to Nat come back to haunt Pike when he returns late on Sunday evening, finding his console chirping and the communicator that he'd left on the kitchen table wildly blinking in the low lights of the room. With a frown, Pike picks it up and walks into his living room, flopping down on the couch and snapping it open. There have been several calls from his assistant and Komack, spanning from Saturday afternoon until just an hour ago, but none left a message, which leaves him to call Komack.

"Hello, Pike," his colleague says when he picks up the call, mouth full of what Pike surmises to be a late night snack. "Where have you been hiding?"

"Out in the desert, as always," Pike says. "What's the matter?"

"You're mentoring Cadet Dael, aren't you?"

"Yes," Pike replies. A sudden wave of unease rushes over him. "Why?"

"She hasn't been to any class since Thursday - has all but vanished from the face of Earth. No communicator with her, not answering calls. None of her team members knows anything."

Pike briefly closes his eyes, the unease condensing into a tight ball in his stomach. "Thanks for informing me. I'll see what I can do."

"That would be good. Would be a shame if she dropped out for some reason, just when she seems to have finally settled in."

Pike turns his head, looking at the pictures she's given him, the beautiful art shots of her tattooed glory, which he's hung up in a corner. "I'll call you when I know more."

"You better do that. See you tomorrow." Komack ends the call.

Pike changes into his admiral's uniform and coat, deciding that if he went after a cadet, some underlining of his authority might be useful or otherwise someone might call the camp police when he enters her room. There's a special authority key code, it's logged and all necessary persons will know he's been there, and it's the only starting point that comes to his mind right away.

Half an hour later, he's at Dael's dorm. Ever since Charlene Rogers moved out, she's been the single official occupant, her reputation not having invited anyone else to share. When he enters, the light flashes up. The room is in chaos - no, not just chaotic, he thinks as he walks through the things that lie on the floor, scans the piles on the desk - it's messy, dirty, and looks as if she hadn't cleaned for a year. Though with the usual dorm regulations on the campus, that is unlikely.

He looks through the papers on the desk, finding nothing but study material - books, paper notes, PADDs. He goes through her closet, which feels strange but he's just checking whether she packed anything, and it doesn't look like she did. There are few clothes, but he knows most of them from sight and nothing seems to be amiss. It only increases his worries.

Not expecting it to be anything important, he picks up a folded letter from the ground next to her bed, but it unfolds to the copy of a death certificate. On its upper edge is a handwritten note, saying, "He told me to send you this. " Of the many words on the certificate, only two are important.

Raol and suicide by OD.

Pike heavily sinks down on the bed, his fingers tightening around the edges of the paper as a brief feeling of personal failure hits him. He'd all but forgotten about Dael's brother in the midst of all his work, and now wonders if there's anything he would've been able to do if he had been a little more pro-active regarding this cause.

Useless ponderings, he knows, and folds the paper to put it onto the night stand before leaving the dorm.

Pike goes to speak to her few academy friends, who don't know anything, then drives to the Silver Barracuda to speak with Arissa. Dael hadn't been in for her usual Friday night, and none of the women in the club have a clue where she might be, but they give him the names of other clubs that Dael visits once in a while. He starts with these clubs, then drives around in the city, looking for her in every other club he knows about, every bar that might be to her liking. When he shows his ID to the doorkeepers, he's often directly referred to the owners, but all shake their heads over her description and her official ID shot he shows them.

"You know I don't let in cadets," Joe Mercury tells him when he's in the Blue Sun, a club in the outskirts preferred by some alien species because of its complex, layered coloring that makes it look cozy in comparison to human-centric clubs. Mercury is a tall, muscular bear, which makes some people rumor that he's got some Klingon blood in his family line. He's surely a man Pike wouldn't want to encounter in a fight, but he's got his heart in the right place, and the club is clean and has a good reputation. The music, though, is like a constant hammer gnashing against Pike's inner ear - not a place he'd ever stay. But it might be a place for Dael.

"I doubt you look at their IDs," Pike says with a shrug. "And I'm just asking. There's nothing illegal about her being here, it's only that she has a family emergency and nobody can find her."

"What a pity."

They stand at the edge of the dance floor, and somehow Pike seems to get used to the music, because it stops being just aural pain and turns into something actually interesting. He scans the large room, thinking he might hit the club another night when he's not on business.

"Had a fight here lately?" he asks as he notices a broken glass tile in one of the corners.

"Just last night. Some crazy idiots taking on a boy who had Romulan tattoos all over his body. Not something anyone should wear on Earth. Kicked them all out, first the boy, then the idiots." Mercury underlines the story with a rumbling laughter, while Pike suddenly has an epiphany.

"A boy? I doubt that."

"You think that was your cadet?" Mercury vaguely gestures at Pike's pocket. "No way. I could always tell a boy from a girl. Had no hair to boot. Looked right like from the pictures published after that thing with Vulcan. Looked brutal. And the eyes - full of cold anger. Wouldn't have been surprised if he'd had a knife somewhere but my metal detectors are top quality."

"What happened to him?"

"No clue. Got a little banged up though I think that the others got it harder. Vanished in the night."

Pike draws his hand over his lips in thought, wondering if he should get back to the dorm, but it's late and while this is a sign of her, it's still a dead end. He says good-bye to Mercury, promising to show up again on a better day for a chat and some free drinks, then drives back into the city, up and down the beach streets for another hour until he's wiped. He's out of ideas, and the next step would be to inform the authorities, but he instantly dismisses that. They would handle her like a criminal, which she wouldn't take well at all in her current state. There's a light rain over the city now, and it drags his low mood down further.

Suddenly he's in front of his apartment house, where he never parks, and there's a free spot. A few meters by foot in the rain are just the thing he needs, and he walks along the pavement, his hands buried in the pockets of his uniform coat.

It's as if the shadows creep up on him, he thinks as he draws towards the main entry, his steps quickening. His fists balled, he walks to the door, the lights flashing as the motion detector notices him.

He rather feels the body close to his back than sees it, and he wheels around, ready to fight - only to jump back, hitting the doorframe in a panic reaction before being able to parse that this isn't Nero but her. He clamps one hand onto the front of his coat, fighting for air.

"Don't ever sneak up on me again," he states, but the words come out weak and fearful.

The cadet has never looked so alien, and he's still fighting his impulse to flee. Her visible skin is a ghostly white compared to the dark lines, and he can't keep from staring at her tattooed, shaven head, the patterns he's never seen before. Her jacket is half-open, nothing beneath it. He wonders if she's been sitting here like that all day and knows she must've hidden somewhere because someone would have called the police.

Pike takes a sharp breath, shaking his head to gain more control, then looks at her again. There's a gnash over one cheek, and her lips look swollen. She doesn't say anything, just keeps looking at him, and he only knows one thing to do.

"Come with me," he says and opens the door. She follows him, and once they're inside in the hall, he gives her another look-over, taking in her battered features and her light limp. He should probably bring her to SF Medical but she must have had a reason to come here, and hell if he's going to give her the feeling of being thrown out.

They ride in the elevator in silence. She doesn't really look at him, but she doesn't avoid his look either. She just seems a little bit out of it all, and he supposes that she didn't have a good meal or a good sleep for the last few days, so once they're in his apartment, he makes her sit down and eat something while he prepares a bath for her. He lays out some clothes; they'd all be too large, but at least they would be comfy and fresh. She eats as ordered, then vanishes in the bathroom for a long time, until he almost feels compelled to check after her. When she comes out, she sits down on the couch. She trembles a little, and he offers her one of the warm extra blankets he'd bought since he entertained his two lovers in his apartment, careful to keep out of her private space.

"Want a coffee? Tea?"

She mutely shakes her head, so Pike sits down on a chair, hands loosely in his lap.

"It's rather late already," he says after they sit in silence for a while. "You can have the couch. It's comfortable. I'll get you all you need."

He goes to his bedroom, collecting some extra bedding.

She's still sitting on the couch when he returns, blankly staring into space.

"Look - I know what happened," Pike says and sits down on the other end of the couch, leaning forward onto his knees with his elbows, folding his hands. "I've found the death certificate. I'm sorry for your brother."

She finally looks at him, her gaze clearing a little. "You said he just might need some time."

"Some people do. Some people get over these phases. Some don't. I didn't know him well, but it's a fact of life that you can't help people who cannot accept that help."

Dael keeps staring at him, her eyes eerie in her tattooed face, her menacingly looking head like a declaration of war to Earth society. He breaks the eye contact and looks down to the floor.

"He was my family. He was all I had left." She sags from her tense posture to the side, leaning her head against the couch's back. She's shaking a little, but there are no actual tears. "Guess I lost him already years ago. I tried so hard to be all he needed," she whispers. "But I was never good enough."

Pike hates platitudes, and knows she hates them too. Which leaves him with little meaningful to say because nothing could fix the loss she's experienced, the big difference between "out of one's life" and "dead forever".

"If you want to visit his grave, I'd come with you," he offers, and it sounds damn lame once the words are out.

"I - don't even know if there is one," she replies.

"We'll find out."

She pulls the blanket closer around her. "I don't know if I'd want to see it."

"Just give it a thought." Pike gets up. "I need to go to bed. You can call in sick tomorrow, if you want to."

"I won't." Dael shakes her head.

"Fine. If you are hungry or anything, help yourself. There isn't a lot in the fridge but it should be enough for tonight." He leaves the light on when he withdraws into his bedroom for a night of rather unsteady sleep.

*

True to her words, Dael gets up and is ready to leave with him the next morning.

"I'll deliver you to your room, so that you can get your uniform," Pike says, cradling his blessed first cup of coffee in his hand as they sit in his kitchen. "But I guess we should do something about your head."

She raises a hand, brushing over her bald patch. "I just felt the need… it's a mourning ritual."

"There's no regulation against it, but I'm not sure how your fellow cadets will handle the sight."

She looks at him, her eyes dismantling his statement. "This is about you. You don't know how to handle it."

He holds her gaze. He'd love to refuse her diagnosis, but he can't. "It's hitting home a little too close for my taste," he admits at last.

"It's still just me." Dael surprises him as she catches his free hand and lifts it up to her forehead. "Touch it." For a second, his palm rests on her head, his fingers drifting over the already re-growing hair - taking in the reality of her, compared to bloated, blurred memories. Then he quickly pulls away.

"I -" He struggles for something good to say.

"I don't want to cover it anymore at the academy," she says, and it sounds very definite.

It's something Pike has hoped for a while; now it's on him to find out if he can live with the full sight of her. Her intimidating head tattoos give a bitter-sweet turn to his successful mentorship.

"I hope you can live with this - Sir."

"Of course," Pike says automatically. "It's your decision." He puts down the cup. "Ready for departure?"

"Yes."

He delivers her to her dorm, then goes to his office. It doesn't take long before the first of her instructors calls him, demanding some background information on her tattoos. It's a cultural inheritance, he says, it's covered by regulations. And yes, she knows that this might lead to negative reactions and she's ready to face them.

Dael lets her hair grow back, but the patterns on her face remain visible. The medium-sized earthquake of her apparently Romulan background shakes the academy for some weeks; then nobody speaks about it anymore.

*

It's almost four weeks after Raol's death message that Dael sits in his office and asks, at last, if his offer of visiting the grave with her still stands. Pike has done some research, so he knows where to drive to, and they agree to start early on Saturday morning. He picks her up on a crossroad in the middle of the city - better not be seen by too many students - and heads off south. Somehow it figures that a boy like Raol would choose a dusty, hot city near the Mexican border to die.

Dael wears black denim and a black shirt and an oversized, fake leather jacket, which she tightly clutches around herself. For the first kilometers, she stiffly sits in the co-driver's seat. Then, from the corner of his eyes, he catches her gaze drifting towards him. "What about some music?" she asks reluctantly.

"Sure, switch it on." He's got an old-fashioned radio without voice control, something that confuses most of his passengers, but she instantly knows which button to press to start the radio. Pike chuckles as he sees her frown over the strange sounds that emanate the speakers.

"That's music?"

"That's Station Twenty."

"Twentieth of this century?

"No, twentieth century music," Pike makes clear. "The favorite of a certain spaceship captain." He smiles as he remembers Jim putting in the station on their first day of vacation.

"That's the ultimate Kirk compatibility test," McCoy said from the back seat as Kirk bent forward to play with the controls of the radio. "You either get used to it, or you stop dating Jim."

"Aw, come on, Bones, it's not that bad," Kirk said, about to add something when a screaming sound drowned his voice.

"See what I mean?" McCoy shouted in Pike's ear.

"Yes," Pike shouted back, and decided to reset the station as soon as he had a chance.

Months later, the radio is still playing Kirk's favorite music, because even though Pike never really got into it, it's still a piece of Jim somehow, and he didn't have the heart to change the station yet.

"It's… unusual," Dael says cautiously, tilting her head with the frown still lingering.

"It is," he agrees and determinedly switches to a standard channel. He's in clubs often enough to be up-to-date, and she markedly relaxes next to him once one of the current top twenty songs drifts through the car.

They drive for five hours, something he hasn't done in a while, and even with a few breaks he feels more tired than he should. They barely exchange a word, but it's a comfortable silence. She sleeps for a while, folded in the seat, her head slightly nodding up and down with the underground. When he finally pulls the car onto the parking place of the cemetery, she unfolds and stares out of the window.

"We've arrived," he says superfluously and gets out, shaking his legs to get rid of the stiffness. Dust curls around his black shoes, settling on them in a thin yellow layer. The sun is blinding as he squints at the old iron door. The place looks stuck in some past century and he starts wondering if they're at the right spot. But then she finally gets out and stalks past him, wordlessly entering the cemetery. He locks the car and follows her in a short distance, accepting that she obviously doesn't want to share the moment.

It's like a time warp when he walks through the lines of graves that feature anything from wood and stone to more modern plastic statures and decorations. In the very back of the cemetery he sees her stop in front of a wall of urns. She raises a hand, touching one of them. He stops shortly behind her and leans against a dying tree with arms laced in front.

He feels terribly at the wrong place and time. Coffins in space don't leave a physical place to mourn, and plaques on a wall are a lot less real than looking at an actual urn that. It makes death somehow more tangible. He thinks of the boy, hazy from drugs, indignantly trying to protect his sister from some perceived threat. Maybe he should've offered more help but the situation actually hadn't looked that critical. Another useless what-if in his current life.

Dael turns around and walks back to him. "After all we've been through…" She sighs and shakes her head, gaze drifting away from him. "Let's leave." When they're back in the car, he starts the engine. She picks a paper out of her pocket. "We've got to go west," she says.

"West?"

"We've got to visit another cemetery." She shows him a map, a red circle marking the destination.

"Who's buried there?"

"Just trust me," is all she answers, and he shrugs and diverts westwards. It takes another two hours and a lunch break to get to an even tinier cemetery. This time they walk through the lines together until she stops in front of a wooden cross with 'Johnny Kirk' written on it.

"Whose grave is that?" he asks in sudden foreboding.

"It's Sam Kirk."

"Sam Kirk? - Jim's brother?"

"Yes."

Pike has known about the missing brother, but aside from the one time he tried to ask Cadet Kirk and got harshly rebuffed for it, he's never given much thought to him. It hurts surprisingly strongly to learn about the brother's demise now.

"What happened to him?" he asks, throat dry. The name might be wrong but the dates seem to be right, which made the deceased barely twenty-two... Kirk's age when Pike had picked him up in that bar.

"The captain said the death certificate says accident, but he knows better. He said he'll send you a recording about it, he just didn't manage before we left."

He's a little wounded that Kirk told Dael more than he ever told him - he hadn't even known they had stayed in contact. On the other hand, if this had been a suicide, then the two have something incredibly connecting and Pike is just happy that he's never been in their place.

"They were both so young," Dael says, and from the way her voice breaks, he can feel she's close to crying. There's nothing good to say, so he only offers a shoulder to lean on, closing one arm around her. She takes a deep breath, then nudges her head against his jacket, her body tense but no tears breaking. At last she takes a few pictures to send to Jim, then they are ready to leave.

The air is fresh and the sun is still bright as he pushes the car to its limits, something he rarely does.

After the first city, she starts talking about life on Khal'kohachi before the Narada, how it was to grow up in a tiny colony on the edge of the Federation. Some details make Pike think that it was a rather sectarian surrounding, but that's not something a kid would notice who's never seen anything but that colony. She speaks about her family and the group, the Romulan rituals they cherished, the strange mix of cultural exploration and adaption. She speaks about the day when the first, vague news of some catastrophe on Vulcan comes in, but Vulcan is far away - until the day when the raiders show up trying to take blood-thirsty revenge on people who they see as siding with the enemy. She speaks about finding her dead mother and youngest brother, and then living on a devastated planetoid with an increasingly mad father and decreasing food supplies. How the hours her father spent on perfecting their Romulan tattoos became the only ones when he seemed clear and under control.

She speaks about the hopes they had when finally a ship arrived to bring them all to a nearby planet, in the name of rescue efforts, but it split the family and she and her brother ended up in a refugee camp, where their tattoos turned them into hated outsiders. Only one older couple took pity on them and they ended up hiding with them until the IDIC Foundation came to the camp and rescued the two orphans whose tattoos were a severe obstacle for their future. They wanted to talk them into having them removed, but it was the only thing they had to keep of the past, so the Foundation finally settled for the makeup solution. They were on Vulcan for a year and never felt welcome, but at least it brought her good leverage when applying to the academy, seeing Starfleet as the only institution that would protect colonies like hers.

"I made my way - but Raol never could. And now it's over," Dael concludes sadly when it's already dark. Pike doubts she'd ever spoken about her past for so long, even when the narration had been told rather unemotionally, carefully avoiding all those little details that would've been able to flesh out the horrific reality of these years.

They're still two hours away from San Francisco, and he's hungry and emotionally worn out from her story but glad that she shared it with him. He stops the car at the nearest restaurant and they have dinner together. He'd never taken a meal with her before, and frowns at the tiny portion she eats, mentally going over her story again in the search for an explanation - usually, people who'd been close to starving once in their life would eat more afterwards, not less.

Dael lifts her eyes from under short lashes as she feels his gaze resting on her. "Sir?"

"Just noticed you eat very little."

She stares down on her plate as if she's never really thought about it.

"Never mind," he says, sorry for obviously hitting a spot that hadn't registered on her mental landscape yet. Swiftly, Pike changes the subject and idly speaks of the local food, too tired to deal with any more potentially troubling information.

When he brings the car to a stop at her dorm in the middle of the night at the end of a very long day, they sit in silence for a moment.

"You okay?" he asks, glancing at her.

"Yes." She nods. "Thank you for the day. It helped a lot." She opens the door.

Suddenly remembering what he wanted to do, he whips out one of his few paper cards and scribbles a number on its back. "If you need anything - that's my private comm. Call anytime, okay?"

"Understood. Thank you, sir." She clamps it between forefinger and thumb, then slips out of the car. Half-turning back at him, she says, "See you Wednesday in a week."

"Yes. Good night, cadet."

He watches her until the first door closes behind her, then starts the engine and drives home.

*

It takes another day before he receives a message from Jim, and then it's only text.

"I tried to record something," it starts, "but I redid it so often that I decided to write instead. You're probably wondering why Dael knew, but I've kept in contact with her a little and when you alluded to some loss of family, I called her. We ended spending a pile of 'fleet credits on a two-hour chat. She's a great girl and I'm glad she met you, because she can use help as much as I could, back then.

"I was eleven and Sam was fifteen when he had yet another fight with our stepfather Frank. He left for good, after telling me I'd do fine since I had good grades and obeyed every stupid order. On that day, I almost killed myself with Dad's old car. I steered it right towards the antimatter canyon and wanted to go down with it - but then I couldn't do it and jumped out in the very last moment. I hung on the edge and climbed up from the abyss, literally and figuratively, and decided that never again was I going to let myself get kicked around without fighting. No longer the obedient kid - you can imagine how that went down with Frank over the next years.

"'I'll see ya,' Sam had said, but he never called. When I got my first car, I started searching for him, but I never found him. Not until I was twenty-two and ended in some bar and someone said something about a Johnny Kirk. It was a joke between the two of us, Johnny and Jimmy, like that goofy duo in our childhood comics, as if we could make our world a little brighter with it. I dug around in the town for the man and was shocked to find a grave. I got to know his ex, who told me some stories and showed me some shots. It definitely was Sam. He died at twenty-two, and while the death certificate says it was a car accident, she says she knows better - and I know too.

"I drove back all the way to Iowa and Frank's farm, although he's not even alive anymore. The farm was quiet and empty, a 'For Sale' sign set up in the front yard. I sat down on the stairs and got drunk, thinking about all the things I'd say to my mother if she were there, but of course she wasn't. I sat there for a day then, drove toward the shipyards. I have no clue why I went there, or why I went into the bar that night, but it was one of those crossroad situations and if you hadn't come along, there's no telling what I would've done the next day.

"Nobody but Bones and Dael and now you know about this, and I trust you to never tell anyone else, especially not my mother. She never cared and she doesn't care now, and the only family I want and need in my life is Bones and you.

"Thanks for reading. I'll delete my copy of the message, please do the same. I'm not Jimmy anymore, to no one.

Love,

Jim"

Pike gets up and opens a bottle of wine because he really, really feels like it. He takes a sip, toasting to George Kirk in a quiet salute. If someone totaled his karma one day, he hopes that he gets bonus points for Jim, although he likes to think that the boy would've come around without him, too. He reads the text message once more, then deletes it and makes a note to call Tom and the kids the next day. He hasn't talked to them in far too long.

*

"You look like you've been to a funeral," Farnham says when they have dinner together in his friend's apartment on Wednesday.

"Something like that," Pike admits, twirling the red wine in his glass. "Thanks for the marvelous meal. You're getting better all the time - something I wouldn't have thought possible."

"Glad you noticed that, because from the way you ate, it could just as well have been a two credit hot dog. Care to share your thoughts with me?"

"Got various things on my mind. None of them any fun."

"Everything all right with your boyfriends?"

"Yes." Pike sets down the glass. Besides Jim's text message, there had been a recording by the doc, short and quick, because the Enterprise is currently engaged in a humanitarian mission. But he hasn't heard from the Lexington since they left Deep Space 5, and while this isn't really unsurprising, it still makes him a little nervous. It brings his mind back to the day he had visited Esteban's family, the painful second thoughts he'd had over a decision made to the best of his abilities and the options of Starfleet.

"Remember when I hit your apartment five weeks ago?"

"With Eric tied to the bed? Sure."

"We never talked back then."

"Well, try now," Farnham says with a twinkle.

"What's the largest loss of life that's resting on your conscience?" Pike asks slowly, aware how his question might turn the easy atmosphere of the evening into some moody venting of his current worries, all the things he couldn't share with his lovers on the Enterprise. Because it had become clear to him that aside from the many good reasons not to assign the Enterprise to the Borg hunt, it's also been in his very personal interest to keep them in safer areas. Considering how much he'd disliked such favoritisms in the past, he's obviously arrived at a position in his life now where he is able and willing to pursue his own goals on the backs of others - a low point on his current list of annoying personal issues that weight heavily on him.

Farnham laughs a little. "You're kidding?" he asks, and then frowns when Pike shakes his head.

"I mean it. But you don't have to answer."

His friend rubs his chin. "A year ago, you would've suggested I don't have a conscience."

"Guess I know you a little better now."

There's a long moment of silence before Farnham replies at last, "There was that planet, close to a civil war between the pro-Fed government and the anti-Fed opposition. We came in and tried to stabilize the government. I know it sounds like a cheap excuse, but we really had their best interest in mind. We tried hard to prevent the war - we would even have collaborated with the opposition to stop the development. But they had their own agenda. The government fell, all went to hell. At least four million dead. The planet was bombed back to the Stone Age and blacklisted by the Federation. No contact to be established for the next fifty years." He shakes his head. "I still think that if we had made a few different decisions - if I had made some different decisions, it could've been prevented. But well, it's long over."

He shrugs. "Hope you're satisfied now, admiral," he says lightly and gets up, ready to put away the dishes.

"No, I'm not," Pike surprises him, capturing his wrist. "I've got a ship out there -"

"There are always ships out there, Chris. Yours, someone else's. In the big scheme of things, it doesn't matter." Farnham pulls away from his grip. "That's something I always admired about you - the surety with which you delivered your orders, the ease with which you always succeeded in even the most critical situations. There's a reason why you were one of the longest-serving captains. You didn't chew over your responsibilities. You carried them just as you needed to, but they never grew into a burden. You didn't question your decisions afterwards. You did what you had to do and lived with it."

"That man doesn't exist anymore," Pike replies quietly. That man got broken on a table on the Narada, he actually wants to say, but suddenly understands that what Farnham is looking for is the Christopher Pike of the past, the officer with the air of invincibility, and not the hesitating, emotionally more insecure man of today. Farnham neither wants to deal with his own shit nor with Pike's, and Pike can't really blame him for it as it's been his favorite method of dealing with it, too. He only started to talk about such things after the Narada, very tentatively, and only Jim and the doc ever managed to force him into facing some really gloomy areas of his psyche.

Farnham proves his suspicion by waving his statement aside. "That man will come back, I've got no doubt about it." He carries out the trays, switching on the music on the way. "Let's move to the couch," he says on his return and pours them two drinks, the swing in his hips a promise for more distraction.

Maybe that's exactly why he keeps meeting Farnham, Pike thinks; to have one place in his life where he's seen as complete, treated as if nothing special happened over the last years. He just wishes it was real.

This night, Pike gets home to sleep in his own bed.

*

It's barely midnight when Pike arrives at his apartment and sits down in his kitchen, sipping a late coffee and thinking about all the things he should do, like finally moving into his brand-new, perfectly refurbished apartment. Right now, he can't imagine living in these spacious rooms all alone. Kirk and McCoy have brandished his old apartment by all the shared little moments - drinking from his cups, sitting on his couch, making love to him in his bed. On bad days, these memories are hard enough to bear, but at least they are real; in his new apartment, all he would have are ghostly options and hopeful what-ifs.

With a sigh, Pike gets up and walks to the bedroom. He undresses quickly, for the second time tonight, and sinks down on the bed. Briefly debating with himself whether to switch on McCoy's incredible recording - it works like magic as long as he skips the words around the actual sex scene - Pike decides to jerk off on memories alone. The bedding is cool as he rolls onto his back and settles with one lubed hand around his dick and the other cupping his balls. He draws up his legs, spreading them as far as he can. Images instantly come to his mind, memories of their vacation together.

Jim licking his dick, slowly and thoroughly, two fingers buried in Pike's ass for preparation. Entering him so carefully as if it's still a rare gift, to be cherished by going slow until Pike falls apart beneath him, both a little self-conscious whenever their gazes meet.

In his fist, his erection gets hard and heavy over this first scene, but it's not enough, and so his mind quickly moves to other memories

The three of them together, in many various ways; Jim on his knees, getting fucked by the doc who's fucked by Pike, their classic position that never fails to work, maybe because the doc still never comes this way and always ends between them, panting and begging for it. The doc half-sitting against the head of the bed with Pike deep inside of him, face to face, kissing and almost forgetting Jim until the young captain sets the pacing, rolling his hips to drive Pike into the doc. Jim on his back, wanton and needy, with Pike kneeling over him and sucking him dry on McCoy's orders.

The memories make him arch into his hand, each tingling a nerve, but it's still not enough, and so he rolls over and gets the vibrator from his little nightstand, quickly pushing it into his ass. Setting the rhythm to deep, separate impulses that remind him of a good fucking, Pike sinks back to rekindle his briefly faltered arousal, delving into the scene in which McCoy had topped him so completely. He brings one hand up to a nipple, capturing and pulling it sharply. His erection strains from the sudden flow of endorphins, his ass cheeks clenching together as he remembers the doc filling him up and fucking him into the couch until he'd begged him for release. Ah, how much he'd love to relive this moment of no responsibilities and of no demands except for giving in to the pleasure. But there's nobody here to carry his burdens, even momentarily, and with that thought Pike rolls to his side with a groan, his body edging along orgasm without wanting to cross the threshold.

It's the gentlest memory he finally settles in, of how the doc and he had enjoyed slow, languish love-making when Jim had been away for his second climbing trip. How they had kissed each other from sleep to painful arousal, mouths opening to each other, teeth capturing lips, tongues battling for warm depths. Their hands had explored every centimeter, stroking and massaging and teasing the nipples, at last coming to rest on the straining erections, their grips tight and strong.

For a long time, they'd been able to edge away from orgasm. Shared a breakfast, fed each other bagels, suggestively sucking honey from sticky fingertips. They'd switched around several times, the one in the bottom position not allowed to touch the other one. There had been jokes and playful kissing in one moment, and a slap and a strong hold in the next one. When they'd finally come together, arching and whimpering into each other's mouth, it hadn't been the usual, spiky eruption but more of a long, oscillating plateau, mind-blowing and so fulfilling that Pike had felt like melting into his lover. They'd sagged against each other, not speaking for long minutes, drifting in the perfect moment until it got too much to bear. Then they'd gotten up, showered, and at last ended on the couch, curled around each other as sleep claimed them again.

They'd never talked about it later.

Pike comes with a sigh, a strange orgasm that seems to spring from his core like a wave of sadness, teary with longing. His heels press into the bedding as he tries to push harder, to give it an edge that it just doesn't want to deliver. When it ebbs off, his fingers are slick with sperm. He lifts them to his mouth, licking them clean like McCoy had done that day, tongue whirling around the fingertips, tongue-fucking the gaps between them. At last he stops the vibrator and curls to his side. He should get up and clean himself, but he's exhausted and tired and soon drifts into sleep, a little doleful smile on his lips as he thinks of what the doc would say about the mess he's in.

*

Saturday morning is bright and fresh when Pike starts for another weekend in Mojave. He hadn't heard from Dael all week, but decides that as long as none of her instructors call him because of missed classes, all should be well. No use in imposing himself onto her - she can call anytime (even though he suspects she won't).

However, when he notices the tiny, folded figure at the bus stop next to the last traffic light before the highway, Pike instantly pulls to the side, all concerns about interfering with Dael's life washed away. His ears ringing from the horns sharply blown behind him, he lowers the side window.

"Need a lift to somewhere?" he calls out. She walks up to him, dressed in blue jeans and a black shirt under her too-large jacket, a small bag dangling at her side.

"Good morning, sir," she says and leans over with one hand on the car roof. "I don't have a destination - I only wanted to get away for the weekend, no matter where to." She has a certain lost puppy look, which he can't bear.

"Come on in," he says, relieved when she climbs in without ado. "I'm on my way out to Mojave. Ever been on horseback? You could ride with me."

"I learned to ride when I was a child, but that was a long time ago." She looks a little put off by his suggestion.

"You don't have to, it's just an offer." He nods towards the radio. "Switch it on."

Without hesitation, she presses the button and searches a station. When it locks, he lifts his brows. "Station Twenty?"

"I listened to it all week," she admits. "It's strange but I start to see the appeal." She sneaks him a glance. "Did you receive a message from the captain?"

"Yes."

She doesn't inquire further, and he doesn't invite questions. This is his weekend off from his unhelpful musings about life and death and his part in it.

He's not surprised when she falls asleep after a few miles, curled in a fetal position.

*

"This is Whitestar, my favorite," Pike says proudly as they walk into the stables, and waves at the strong gelding. Dael is stalking behind him, clad in bright white riding gear and boots lent to her by the farmer's youngest daughter. "And for you, we've got Vivaldi."

He feels a little bit guilty that he's talked the cadet into riding with him, but it will be an interesting experience and hopefully get her mind off the events of the last weeks. The horses are soon saddled up, and he goes through the basics with her before they ride out into the desert, his saddle bags filled with water and sandwiches.

*

The great thing about this part of the Mojave is the untamed environment of the nature reserve.

The bad thing - right now - is that this means no weather controls, and Pike eyes the gathering clouds with a frown. Usually, he would have no problem avoiding the storm that's brewing there, but today he's here with a beginner, and Dael can't keep up with his pace. Hiding his concern about the weather, he guides Whitestar next to her mare and gives the cadet an encouraging smile.

"I think that's enough for your first day," he says. "Let's ride back to the farm."

"Good idea," she replies with a little sigh, shifting in the saddle and confusing the horse. "My body hurts."

"That's normal. I rarely ride with anyone, much less a beginner, so I probably overexerted you a little."

"It's not that bad," she hurries to say. "I just can't stop being nervous about the horse. It's much easier for me to depend on technology, but an animal… Have you ever fallen from a horse?"

Pike chuckles. "Quite a few times. It gets better over the years, but even the best riders are thrown off once in a while. I'd say a certain amount of falling is necessary, otherwise you never learn where your limit is."

Dael eyes the distance to the ground. "It's high enough to get injured."

"Definitely. But you shouldn't be too concerned about it. Vivaldi is experienced and gentle."

"If you say so… sir." She sounds a little doubtful.

"Let's ride a little faster," he says with an eye on the clouds and settles into trot. Her horse follows his lead immediately. She hangs in the saddle like a sack and he draws his hand over his mouth to hide his smile. From the look in her face, she'd rather space jump right now - which he knows she hates.

"I hope we'll get some apple pie. The farmer's wife makes the best I ever tasted. Do you like apple pie?" Pike asks conversationally.

"I bought it a few times, but most are so dry."

"That happens when genetically manipulated apples are used. The farm has its own natural apple trees. You could take some home with you."

"Are you here often?"

"Quite often. It was the farm of my parents. After their death, I first leased it to the current farmer, but land like this needs a dedicated owner, so I sold it to him." Pike isn't sure why he tells her the story; maybe he wants to give something back to her, after how much she'd opened up to him.

"Didn't you feel like giving up your past?"

"I was in space all the time. I couldn't take it with me anyway." He looks up at the clouds, and she follows his gaze. "It's darkening," she notes.

"Yes. We'll get rain very soon."

"Shouldn't we be safe on the road here?"

"This isn't a road, Dael - this is a dry channel bed. Which could turn into a formidable death trap if we get a flash flood, but it's also the quickest way to get back to the farm. Let's hope we're fast enough."

Pike is gambling, trusting his luck and feel for the desert to get them out of the bed before the water comes. Thunder resounds in the distance, and Dael shifts in the saddle again, which makes the horse prancing left and right.

"Shush," he says soothingly, as much to her as to her horse, which feels the nerviness of its rider. There's suddenly a lot of tension in the air as nature braces itself against the coming onslaught, and the horses hurry on without needing another signal.

Another rumble of thunder rolls over the desert, much louder and harsher than the first one. "You're doing good," Pike says. "Let's get out of here."

He steers his horse towards her horse and the right side of the channel, planning to get them out onto the dam, when the first lightening cuts through the sky, quickly followed by a second, explosively striking one. It hits a nearby tree on the dam and the sound is enough to make Vivaldi bolt and gallop along the bed. He instantly sets after her, urging on his horse with his thighs, but still needs a few minutes to catch up with her. Even Dael's tattoos seemed to be depleted, so white is her face when he finally stops her horse with one hand on her reins. "Got you," Pike calls out a little breathlessly, almost feeling the approaching water in his bones. "We need to get up the dam. Hurry!"

Dael's horse makes the first tentative steps up the side of the channel when thin rills of water appear between the legs of his horse. "Up, up, up!" Pike shouts, harshly kicking his horse with the heels of his boots. It lurches forward when the first large waves reach out for its hind legs. Whitestar bolts and struggles under him, the rumbling of the dusty ground going loose under the hooves, the sound joining the flood's noise, and then they tumble and fall. Thrown out of the saddle, Pike tries to dive but ends head-on on a pile of stones. The landing momentarily blackens his world, costing precious seconds in which his horse loses the fight with the water. Tears sting in his eyes as he has to watch Whitestar vanishing with the muddy flood, hoping the gelding will make it.

Shakily, he scrambles to his feet, fighting the sudden headache that makes his head spin and his stomach lurch. Patting his pockets to see if he's lost anything, he finds his usual emergency transmitter gone. Shit.

Dael is limping towards him, her horse on the reins behind her. "I fell off, but it's nothing serious," she says. "The horse is fine."

"We've got to get away from here." Pike takes Vivaldi from her and pulls himself into the saddle. "Get up behind me," he orders roughly. There's something wrong with his head, and they need to get back to the farm as quickly as possible. With his help, she climbs up behind him on the naked horseback and slings her arms around his waist. "Hold on," he says and drives the horse forward. They're doing better than he would've thought, although the rain has caught up with them by now, draining them like a cold shower. Thankfully, they're both rather lightweight. His headache, though, is constantly increasing in intensity, and he's feeling dizzy and disoriented.

"Check my left pocket," he shouts to top the noise of the flood and the rain. "There's an emergency hypo." He's suddenly unsure which would be the right drug; it's hard to focus, and he notices his body swinging from side to side with every step of the horse.

"Sir - Sir? Everything alright?" Her hands are in his pocket, grasping the hypo. "What do you need?"

"Got a concussion… possibly a hemorrhage. Got to stop it."

"That would be Cyrilin? Sir?"

He notes the slightly frantic note in her voice, and the way her arms clamp harder around him, stabilizing his position.

"Sir, please tell me if Cyrilin is the correct choice. I've only had a weekend course in first aid so far."

"I…think so." Pike bends over to the left to vomit, his lunch barely missing the horse before hitting the wet ground. He sorely wishes the doc was here because the way his sight blurs tells him that chances are he'll end in the history books as the admiral who survived Nero but not a stupid fall from a horse. Way to go.

"Sir, I'll inject two doses of Cyrilin now." There's a stab against his neck, and for a few wonderful minutes, the symptoms don't worsen.

"Good choice," Pike mutters. A strong grip pulls him upright, one slim hand catching the reins when his fingers lose their grip on the wet leather. His body limply sags back against her, but she holds on as she drives the horse forward.

"We're almost on the road," Dael says into his ear. "I can see the farm in the distance." His head heavy and pulsing, he nods. His vision is clouded, water running down his face in thick streams, but he trusts her. "Probably waiting for us. Should - ah!" He arches, his body suddenly overtaken by spasms.

"Sir?"

Pike wants to answer, but it's like the storm moved into his brain, throwing him around. His body is out of control, coiling and shaking, and he distantly feels the horse underneath them bucking. His limbs are torn apart by seizures taking over his world; his heart beat is pounding in his head, going boom boom boom and then coming to a sudden halt.

As white peace takes over, Pike only regrets that he can't say good-bye to the people he loves.

Onto part 4/4