Of course I am emotionally compromised

Author's note: You don't need to know this stuff to understand the fic - but if you like details...:
Captain Garth (of Izar) was a Starfleet hero who went insane and megalomanic. Admiral Morrow is the Admiral who Kirk asks for permission to go fetch Spock's body in STIII (he says no, and you know the rest). Cartwright is an Admiral who appears in STIV and also VI, where he might have replaced Morrow and turns out to be part of a conspiracy to stop the Klingon peace negotiations – Memory Alpha notes that several novels claim Cartwright is a member of the nefarious Starfleet Intelligence Section 31. The Fabrini archives are from the TOS episode: For the World is Hollow and I have Touched the Sky. Kronor is the Klingon home world.

[Transcript begins.]

"Admiral Morrow."

"Admiral Kirk."

[Silence 7 seconds]

"First off, let me make clear to you that this is off the record. Completely. We never spoke. There are no notes. There are no recordings."

"I thought that Transparency in Starfleet act meant that there was always a recorder on in this office."

"It broke."

"Yes, Sir."

"I want to start with 'do you have any idea what you've done…' but I don't think anyone has a holistic view of how much you've fucked this up, Kirk, least of all you. I suspect it won't be clear for some weeks yet."

"Yes, Sir."

"I… Damn you. Damn you. And damn all your grandiose gestures and damn that arrogance that everyone warned me about."

"I…"

"Shut up. Shut the hell up. You committed mutiny. You stole the Enterprise. You destroyed it. You destroyed Genesis and the last three months of recordings we had of it, recordings that could have meant as much to the Federation as the Fabrini archives. You made a mockery of the discipline of the service, the chain of command."

"And I lied to you, to your face."

"Yes."

"I'm sorry about that. And I've put you in a really difficult situation right now, and I'm sorry about that too."

"Sorry? That's what you're sorry for?"

"I'm sorry for a lot of things, Admiral. I've given up trying to prioritize them. I try to deal with them in parallel instead. I can be sorry for Genesis, for… the people we lost, for the careers of my crew, for all the people I've let down at HQ, and still be sorry that you really need to be concentrating every minute of every day on what we know is going to be a war with the Klingons, and instead you're left to deal with a media circus about two time travelling whales and a mutinous, arrogant bastard who you can't drum out of the service."

"You think I can't?"

"I know you can't, Sir. What I've done is too big for a dressing down so let's cut the crap and deal with reality. The trial is going to be mostly for show. Everyone knows that I should be thrown in military lock-up indefinitely, but no one wants to do it, so they're going to make you make all the real decisions. I just saved this planet, and the politicians can't be seen to do anything to me that doesn't involve medals. Recruitment to Starfleet Academy is going to go through the roof after this, and you need that. And given their penchant for hero worship, the cadets and the rank and file are going to riot if you drum me out. You have two, and only two, options, and it doesn't matter how much you despise me, because here and now, you and I need to face the facts and you need to make a decision that is going to shape the future of Starfleet, and maybe the Federation."

"You told me once that you actually met Captain Garth after he was thrown into the psych ward. Was he this arrogant?"

"Yeah, about the same. So you disagree with me?"

[Silence 5 seconds.]

"Damn you."

"Most likely, yes."

[Silence 11 seconds]

"The thought of letting you keep that uniform makes me nauseous."

[Silence 6 seconds]

"There's another thing I'm sorry for, Sir. I know you stood up for me, when I fought to get the Enterprise back, after V'Ger. I know the things you said about me. I know the kind of heat you took for me, back then. I know this must feel like a betrayal after that."

"…Are your apologies supposed to mean something to me, Kirk?"

"…No."

"…Well, they do. Jesus, Kirk."

"Yeah."

"What do you propose, you bastard? What are those two options of yours?"

"You either promote me to rear-admiral or you demote me to captain."

[Silence six seconds]

"Go on."

"Option one: you make a big deal of us having saved Earth, and you sweep Genesis under the rug. Then you put me on a made-up oversight or strategic planning committee and let me fade from view over two or three years. I make whatever scripted appearances you want. Then I retire, citing private health reasons. Or, option two: you demote me to captain and you send us out with a new ship. Well, a new Enterprise. The media is going to demand that it be a new Enterprise."

"You'd play nice with option one? You'd actually go quietly?"

"I… Sorry. That was more difficult to say than I expected. Yes. Yes, you have my word, for whatever that is worth to you right now. If that's what you decide, I'll disappear. Spock will go with me, though, or the full brunt of the media's hero worship will just end up on him."

"He'd go with you anyway."

"…Yes. You could put us on Vulcan, maybe. Sorry. We're not in a position to ask for anything."

"But of course that's not the option you prefer."

"No. Of course it isn't."

"So tell me why I should reward you with exactly what you want – a ship, a field command as captain – for the stunts you pulled."

"It's not about rewards or punishments. We have a looming interstellar war with Kronos hanging over our heads. A budget crisis. Skittish allies who are looking towards Romulus more than the Federation council. Starfleet strategy is a hell of a lot more important than punishing me, and we both know it. And if losing... David… didn't do it… Then, frankly, there's no punishment that you're going to be able to come up with to make me see the error of my ways, to reform, to say that given the exact same situation, I wouldn't do the same again."

[Silence, 16 seconds.]

"So. Both the promotion and demotion gets you some respite from the media, some pull on the council. A demotion, putting me out there on the Enterprise again, will get you more, I think, but that's not the real argument. The real reason is that you need us out there. Me and Spock."

"Kirk… Don't… Come on, you wouldn't put you out there, not if you were thinking clearly. You don't put emotionally compromised people on the bridge together with their triggers. Don't try to tell me you're not dangerously emotionally compromised over Captain Spock."

"Emotionally compromised? Of course I'm emotionally compromised. I committed mutiny for him, I crashed the Enterprise. For him. When it comes to Spock, my priorities are skewed, they've been for years. But you knew that. It's all over my psych profile. I'm damaged goods. We both are. But, Sir, who among your senior field commanders aren't? Captain Rev is addicted to stims, has been for the last thirty years. We all know it. But we need her out there, no one can beat her when it comes to stealth. What about Commodore Ivers? He's stealing alien artefacts to his private collection, something happened to make him all obsessive about that collection. But apart from that, he's all rational and about the best strategic mind we have when it comes to the Romulan neutral zone, so Fleet HQ decided that a bit of corruption was worth it. Or Tinok, xe's going to be running for governor of Andoria and…"

"So the fact that others break the rules mean that it's ok for you to do it?"

"It's not about what's ok for me. It's about what Starfleet needs. Me and Spock, no one has a record like us. You need us out there. If the Klingons come, you need us, Harry! How many veteran command teams can you put in the field if the war comes? And, yes, we're damaged – after all our years out there, after all the near-deaths, the deaths, the aliens rifling through our minds, the horrors and tragedies we've seen, the people we've sacrificed… Yeah, we're not perfect any longer. We're damaged, compared to the Starfleet ideal. But if the worst of that damage is that I'd hesitate a second before sending him out to die – is it really that bad? That unforgiveable? Can you really afford to throw us away, just because we're not perfect?"

[Silence 18 seconds.]

"So that's what I should do? I demote you and give you a new Enterprise."

"That's… No. I don't care what decision you make."

"I find that hard to believe."

"I don't. I know what I want. I know what I think is best. But I haven't slept for, God knows… Over two hundred years, I guess. And I'm so emotionally involved with this that… Maybe I am like Garth. Mad megalomaniac. The only things that are good right now are that Spock's alive, that my crew's alive and that I don't have to make the decision that you're going to have to make. Everything else is… bad. I don't care about your decision, because although you have no reason to trust me right now, I have always trusted you, Harry. You wouldn't let me back out there if I were too far gone. If you put me away with a rear-admiral's stripes in a forgotten committee somewhere, then I'll hate it, but then at least I'll know that I can no longer be trusted with command, it'll be clear. I… Look, we've been in here too long. You make whatever decision that you have to make, you arrange a showy trial. I'll be there. I'll accept whatever you decide, I swear it. You have to go and try to clear up this mess now and I have to go and find Spock, and sleep, and call the only person who's more disappointed in me than you right now and tell her that for what it's worth I'm sorry so sorry that I missed our son's funeral and I…"

"Kirk. Jim! Breathe. Take a deep breath. Slowly. Dammit, there are a thousand reporters outside this building. Jim, just a little bit longer, and we're in the clear. We're going to have to meet outside and shake hands to start to prepare the ground for the trial. Can you hold it together that long?"

"Yes. Sorry."

"…Yeah. Yeah, I know you are."

[Silence, 9 seconds.]

"If that's all, Admiral Morrow, the President is waiting for me, and I think I need to be bumping into you on the steps outside in about a minute."

"That's all, Admiral Kirk. And, Kirk… I don't know what I'll decide. I really don't."

"It's ok."

"And Jim… I don' think I said thanks."

"…Thanks?"

"For the whales. And the planet. And bringing back a brother from behind enemy lines."

[Silence 22 seconds]

[Furniture scrapes. Door closes.]

[End of transcript.]

PROPERTY OF SECTION 31.

FOR ADMIRAL CARTWRIGHT'S EYES ONLY.

Done! Please tell me about any typos that you find. Time from start to finish: 2 hours, 18 minutes. This is not beta'd, because I needed to write something to take the edge off work and life stress, and get it _out there_ rather than have it in a work pipeline for a week or two.

Whaddya think? I hear reviewing brings good luck and puppies!