The Enterprise had been docked at Yorktown for two days, the crew members enjoying the luxuries available to them in the high-tech Star Fleet base. They were spread far and wide across the Snow Globe In Space, each meeting up with friends and family, eating and drinking to their hearts content. Enjoying the week of freedom they had, feeling as though they had thoroughly earned this break from endless space. All felt a wave of relief and relaxation, excited to restock with supplies - real food, not rations!

The shuttle bearing the supplies carried more than just food, having travelled a great distance from Earth to carry a certain item back to The Enterprise. Hannah was sat in the back alongside the crates and boxes, filthy and dishevelled. Her hair hung loose in a wild bush, forced back off her face in repeated sweeps of her hand. She itched with the need to escape the small shuttle, and so the noise of docking was music to her ears. It was only as the bay doors opened that a ripping ran through her gut. Fear shot through like never before, excuses for her absence flying through her mind and all failing to sound genuine. But the truth was too harsh for her to bear speaking aloud.

She darted out of the shuttle quickly, before the pilot could realise she was there, and disappeared into the swarms of people hurrying into the main glass dome of Yorktown.

The light was far brighter in there than she expected. Used to the darkness of the shuttle, Hannah squinted around the bright white of Yorktown, the artificial day blinding her. Remaining close to the wall, she blinked rapidly, desperately trying to get her sight back before someone noticed her.

"Hannah?"

Crap.

She spun towards the voice, peering into the light, as a figure shed its blur.

"Lenny," Hannah greeted with a fake brightness that was as glaringly false as the lighting. "Long time no see." McCoy raised an eyebrow at her, unimpressed by her light-handed comments. He grasped her arm and guided her through the crowd, all the time berating her, demanding answers that she had yet created.

"Where the hell have you been?" Was the first impossible question. "Why haven't you called any of us? How did you get here?"

Hannah bit the inside of her cheek, blood welling up into her mouth, before she answered one of the tirade of questions.

"Well. There was the hearing. You know, where I was accused of crimes against humanity?" She stopped in the hall, grinding the two of them to a halt. McCoy turned on her, holding her in place as though afraid she'd vanish again.

"That was nearly a year ago." McCoy's voice was cold. Harsh. Unforgiving.

"I know - trust me, I have answers. Just, not here, okay?" Hannah pleaded. McCoy scoffed and moved to walk away, disgust rippling through the air between them. Hannah caught his elbow and spun him to face her. "Lenny, please. I can't explain yet, but I will. And I need you to do me a favour."

Sat in the otherwise-deserted Medbay, in the otherwise-empty spaceship, Hannah watched McCoy scan her with the tricorder. A frown furrowed his brow, and he glanced up at her briefly. His gaze didn't linger, in fact, if Hannah hadn't been waiting for it, she wouldn't have noticed it. McCoy didn't speak, but the unspoken thoughts were deafening.

"You're bleeding," he said instead. "Lie down." Hannah complied. She watched as McCoy swiped the blood away from between her legs, professional mask on disguising any awkwardness he felt about his current sight line. He opened his mouth to speak but Hannah cut him off.

"Please, don't," she whispered, turning her face away. A quiver found its way into her voice, as she shut her eyes. She didn't need to see McCoy's pity reflected back at her in the white of the walls. "And please, don't tell Jim. He doesn't need to know." Hannah swallowed difficultly, a lump in her throat blocking the action. The wetness on her face seemed to surprise even herself, and she unconsciously raised a hand to swipe away the tears.

"Don't tell me what, exactly?"

Kirk's fury was evident. He stood in the doorway of the Medbay, arms crossed, chest rising and falling rapidly as he tried to contain his anger. Hannah pressed her eyes closed tighter still, choking back the emotions that already began to leak out of her.

"Jim," she began, but Kirk didn't allow her to continue, cutting her off with clipped words and stalking over towards her.

"No. Don't you dare lie your way out of this." His jaw clenched as he swallowed. "You go missing for nine months. No messages, no explanation, no nothing. You don't just show up expect all to be forgiven."

The tears flooded out of Hannah now, a shake quaking through her breaths as she sat up and faced Kirk. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, and pushed the dress over her knees, hiding the stains of blood that lingered on her thighs. She reached for Kirk's hand, but caught herself, finger's breadth away from touching him. She choked on the lump that grew in her throat.

"I can't," she whispered hoarsely. "I will, but Jim-"

"You're unbelievable," Kirk shook his head. "Unbelievable." He didn't wait for her to speak more, only stormed out of the Medbay. Hannah stared after the retreating form, tears blurring her vision, and stood as though to follow him but her legs crumbled underneath her.

McCoy's firm hands grasped her by the elbows and hauled her upright, placing her back on the bed.

"You need to talk to him," he told her. "You owe it to him." McCoy moved around the bed, pressing an injection into her neck with a hiss of releasing air. "Whether the baby was his or not, he should know."

Hannah stayed in the deserted shell of a ship long after Kirk swept out, blazing a trail of anger. The memory of their last argument resurfaced in her mind; the argument that had shook the Enterprise, left them in an almost irreparable state, or so she had thought. Whilst powerful and impactful, their argument had faded after nothing more than a few days, allowing each other to explain their sides. They had let each other back in, they had let the argument fade to nothing.

Hannah didn't think that would happen this time. They were both too wounded this time, the betrayal on both sides following too soon, lasting too long. Hannah's heart tore itself into pieces, latching on to itself with teeth and shredding itself whenever she let her mind drift back to Kirk. She had spent months on that Klingon slave planet, trying to work out how to explain to Kirk her situation, her punishment. She had never intended to start a war - and in fact, hadn't - but Star Fleet and the Klingon High Council punished her as though she had. Star Fleet had been generous, merely revoking her status as ensign, insisting that she train at the academy when she returned to Earth, and handed her over to the Klingons without so much as a bat of an eyelid. The Klingons, however, were feeling less generous. The Klingon Captain she had so recklessly threatened was the one to dole out her punishment, acting as overseer on the slave-world to which she was assigned. He did not spare any punishment, insisting she perform the more gruelling tasks, as well as patch up the other slaves when they got injured. When her pregnancy became too advanced to hide, she was treated even harsh. Food was withheld, medicines she needed held just out of reach. It wasn't until a supply ship landed that she and a few other managed to sneak on-board and escape to Qu'noS, where escape became even harder. It was on Qu'noS itself that Hannah's waters broke. It was on Qu'noS that she gave birth, in a cave, out of the main city, surrounded by the ill and dying, by dirt and filth and disease. It was on Qu'noS when she discovered that in her hardship she had lost her baby. It was on Qu'noS where her fellow escapees abandoned her, and left her for dead, to follow her child to whatever afterlife there may be. And despite everything, despite all the trauma and pain she had been dealt, she forced herself to endure it. She forced herself out of the cave, and onwards, back, towards Jim. Surely he had gotten some of her distress signals, surely at least one had reached him by now. Surely he'd know she was still alive, and hadn't given up yet.

Kirk buried himself in work, avoiding McCoy and Hannah at all costs. Avoiding Hannah was not difficult, for she was barely convinced to leave the Med Bay of the Enterprise, and when McCoy was successful in coaxing her into Yorktown, she then refused to leave her room. Kirk found himself drinking more and eating less; working endlessly, and denying himself sleep. He would be found, writing reports in a secluded area of the base, whiskey resting on the nearest surface. It was somewhere between surprising and alarming that his superiors did not recognise the signs of the report being written by a drunk man, but they did. Days passed in an endless blur, just report after report, meeting upon meeting. He did not know how to approach Hannah, or even if he wanted to. The final year of the five year mission had been undeniable torment without so much as a message from her. He had frequently found himself letting him mind drift back to her, wondering where she was and what she had suffered as penance for her crime. Eventually he had searched the database for her sentence, and found it to be light. The excuses he had made for her absence all fell to ash. She was not serving time in any prison, she was not detained in anyway. She simply had to retrain, take a year's course to remind her of the values that Star Fleet stood for. And he had suffered for months thinking the worst had happened to her. The despair bled into anger, and he found himself hating her for her silence. He felt abandoned and helpless, for no matter whether he was longing after her, or hating her, she still occupied a space in his mind, and he despised the hold she had on him.

The day that Hannah left her room, was the day that Kirk decided to be the bigger man and go talk to her.

They ran into each other in the corridor outside her room, Hannah still clinging on to her attire of loose t shirts and leggings. Comfort clothes that hid her malnourished frame, and the remnants of a pregnancy that still lingered on her midriff. Hannah froze, a deer caught in the headlights, her eyes wide, as though fear flooded her at the sight of Captain James Tiberius Kirk. Kirk halted in his movements as well, and the two of them stared at each other, horrified. At the sight of the other, all words they had hoped to exchange were gone. Hannah felt a knife pierce through her ribs as she saw the hostility lurking in Kirk's eyes. She stepped back in surprise, and Kirk's gaze softened, but it was too late. Hannah shook her head slightly, and backed away from him.

"What made you hate me so?" She asked, the words catching on their way to Kirk. "Why did you never come for me?" Kirk strode towards her, closing the distance between the two of them. Hannah pressed her back to the wall, the cold of the wall stealing the heat from her back.

"Why would I have come for you?" He snapped at her, the words flying towards her. Hannah dragged her gaze up from the ground, the horror and fear fading out to anger. Her eyes pricked as tears sparked in the back of her eyes, but they were tears from fury, not sorrow. Her blood boiled, and the words failed her. She stared at Kirk, unable to articulate the overwhelming betrayal that swam through her; the loss that hit her with those seven words. She had wasted months of her life hoping for this reunion, and Kirk had destroyed it with a single question.