A/N: So, here I was, minding my own business, browsing drowsily through the old kink meme, when there was this prompt to kick me in the face:
I want to read about a Jim Kirk who is terribly fond of kids but has resigned himself to never having a family of his own because of his job in Starfleet. Then, for whatever reason, the Enterprise gets involved with a group of kids - whose ages range from infant to teen - who have no one else (and bonus points if they've gone through something similar to Tarsus IV). So I really want to read about protective!Kirk and daddy!/bigbrother!Kirk really bonding with the kids and always being there for them when they need anything. Of course there will be angst when the kids inevitably have to leave, so extra bonus points if he manages to keep in touch with them and is still protective and fatherly/big-brotherly from a distance. I really would like to feel Jim's emotions throughout this story, but I also really love outsider!POV. If you feel the need to add a pairing, I lean towards Jim/Bones and Kirk/Spock, but I really don't want that relationship to be the focus of the story, so gen would also be absolutely acceptable.
And I thought: Dammit, anon-who-is-so-not-anon, we have a deal! And after this had been sitting on my computer for several months, I finally wrote the ending and prepared it for posting. Ain't I awesome?
Disclaimer: I own nothing, just my cup of coffee and my computer.
Another Brick In The Wall
It never really starts to make sense to him. They were in 23rd century, they managed to survive through several world wars, united the whole planet, mastered the warp technology… and yet they were unable to prevent local conflicts (even if both sides of the conflict had been their own people) or never managed to avoid casualties in case of natural disasters (which they should be able to forecast).
And also, they never managed to assure there won't be armed conflicts in the colonies, together with crop failures.
When the Enterprise finally manages to catch the emergency call from Tinsala colony, it very much obviously is too late for most of the colonists. The colony was small to begin with; at the top numbers, there had been about five hundreds colonists, approximately two thirds of these had been adults. That leaves about one third of children.
Right now, about half of the children is all what remains from the whole colony.
They arrive to the colony at the same time as USS Tiraspoler, crew immediately starting the emergency evacuation procedures. Rescue teams start searching the planet, looking for more survivors, while the medics are running all around, trying to help those who could be saved.
The sight reminds him of the photos from twentieth century Africa – children with eyes so sad and big and old, older than any child's eyes should ever be; their bellies big (one would have thought that it should be exact opposite when the victims were suffering from complete lack of nourishment) and their limbs bones covered with skin. Their ages range from about seven to fifteen, the children are either scared or angry.
"What took you so long, bastards?!" hurls one of the older boys into the face of stunned nurse. He had to be restrained, as anger gave him more strength than he is supposed to have. "You don't care about us, so why are you here?!"
Every single one of his words felt like a stab of a sharp knife. The boy was obviously hurt and sad and he just survived his own personal hell, so they can't really hold it against him. It's just that the whole thing reminds him so strong of another disaster like this, from years ago… From another colony, one which was blossoming before the fate decided otherwise. Four thousand colonists died because they were deemed unworthy, their deaths supposedly ensuring survival of the other half of the colony. They teach about it in the history classes, made them listen to the speech which condemned four thousand people to their deaths and even made them write an essay about what could the Governor Kodos do differently – or what were the strong points in his plan.
The revolution is successful. But survival depends on drastic measures. Your continued existence represents a threat to the well-being of society. Your lives mean slow death to the more valued members of the colony. Therefore, I have no alternative but to sentence you to death. Your execution is so ordered, signed Kodos, Governor of Tarsus IV.
There also had been this boy, with hair which obviously used to be some shade of blond and crystal clear blue eyes, who had attacked the one of the rescue teams, asking the same question: "What took you so long?" It was in one of the classified video footage, but he still managed to hack the records (it wasn't like it was secured all that much) and take look at all of it.
Tarsus IV. After the disaster occurred, many governments vowed to make sure the whole scenario wasn't repeated. And while it was true that no other governor ever again ordered a genocide, famines and crop failures still happened, no matter that in most cases they were able to stop it before it reached its critical brim. The fact they haven't been able to reach Tinsala colony sooner is unlucky combination of conjunctures (meteor destroying one of the transmitters, thus the signal was slower in reaching the closest ships was one of them) – but tell that to children who often remained all alone on the world, their whole immediate family dead.
He has to leave the sickbay, as the whole crew is rotating in there to keep an eye on the children, so they know they are not alone, and start his shift on the bridge. The whole bridge crew is subdued and quiet, the usual relaxed feel to the shift missing.
Captain seems to be out of the place this day; when he manages to sit still, he's just staring into nothingness; when he's doing something, it's filled with the nervous energy (which today seems to radiate from him in waves in size of middle sized tsunami) and whenever he can, he's pacing around the bridge like a tiger in his cage. They are halfway into the shift when Mr Spock discreetly calls the Captain and suggest that he may choose to spend his energy elsewhere – and to the surprise of the rest of Alpha shift Captain just nods and leaves in such a hurry that the doors almost didn't have time to open.
The Captain is known to be rather rash but this kind of behaviour is strange even for him.
After the end of the shift, he made his way to the mess to snatch something to eat, when he overhears several crewmen chatting between themselves.
"And have you seen him with that little girl?"
"What about that twins…"
"Or how he sang…"
And when he spoke with others from bridge, they heard similar stories. Captain was spotted reading storybooks to bunch of five-years, mimicking the voices of the characters, the children giggling happily on their beds, their eyes alight and alive again. There was something so very wrong about all the tubes sticking from their bodies, feeding them intravenously until their stomachs could handle solid food. But like the doctor McCoy liked to say (no matter how strangely it sounded from the usually grumpy man) – happy mind sets the body to the fastest way to recover, especially when it comes to children. And according to the gossips suddenly all over the ship, their Captain is maintaining happy minds for the children every moment he's off-shift for several next days.
Most of the smaller kids are finally of the IV and are allowed to try to have some soup, so he gets them into a group, pairs them up and together they go to the mess hall, children asking about everything. When they stop for tenth time in span of five minutes, he declares ban on any questions, promising the kids a tour once they have eaten and had their nap.
The children liked the suggestion so much that they run ahead of him, if only to make the wait for the tour shorter. Even when they wanted to wolf the soup down, the Captain – or Captain Jim, as the children called him – was able to calm them down so the ate at pace which wouldn't upset their stomachs.
"And now back to the sickbay for your nap," said Captain.
One of the children, Marissa, whined: "Do we have to, Captain Jim? We are too big for a nap." Others voiced their agreement, looking at him expectantly.
Captain just smiled: "Sweetie, you can never be too old for a nap. Besides, I will take one, too."Actually, everyone in the sickbay took nap. CMO's orders and all that. Chekov had been at medbay with twisted ankle (who would have thought that some of the training could be so tricky, when it comes to how you should move your feet) and was very much surprised to see the Sleeping Beauty castle in there.
Nurse Chapel came out of the office, laying a finger to her lips, waving him over. "I can't believe what is happening here," she said while wrapping a cooling bandage on his ankle, "they all fall asleep as if you blew out a candle."
"I've seen him with the children in the mess – it's amazing to see how they interact with the Keptin, da?"
She nodded. "Yes, the small ones definitely took to him. But there is one boy, thirteen years old, and that is a rather difficult person to deal with. He refuses to communicate – in fact, he's the only one we had been unable to take off the IV so far. The other children say he was sort of protecting them, hunting for food and keeping them together."
He remembered the boy – the one who attacked one of the nurses before. The boy was lying on his side, stubbornly staring into wall, refusing to react to the nurse who came to change the IV drop. There was a shadow on his face, Chekov knew, frown making him look older than he really was.
The next few days the children could be seen running around the ship, usually followed by several crewmen (mostly security – who knows what kind of havoc these kids could create if left unsupervised). The only exception had still been the boy in sickbay. According to the rumour mill, Captain still visited him, with no reaction from the kid.
Chekov had been forced to sickbay again, with his other ankle (how he hated these damned practices – they must be so wound-prone only because they were not invented in Russia!) and was quite surprised to see the Captain sitting next to the boy who was still stuck with IV with his own eyes. Doctor McCoy was grumbling something about idiotic ensigns who did not know how to practice safely, when the boy started shouting.
"Why can't you just leave me alone?!"
He was red with anger, and obviously attempting to punch the Captain, when the Captain caught his fist and held it. "Because you need to snap out of it, Dylan. You're only hurting yourself with acting like this." His voice also was rather loud, making the other children, who also had been present due to some examinations, look alarmed.
"Yeah?" drawled the boy. "And what can you know about it, Captain?"
"Ever heard of Tarsus IV, Dylan? That is what I know about it."
The abrupt silence is almost deafening in its intensity, the adults with their mouths agape, the children looking between them, clearly curious about what got the adults' panties in a twist – apart from the breaking of the rule 'no shouting in my sickbay, dammit!'
Dylan's face also does not look so triumphant now. In fact, it was white as chalk now. That was when the Captain laid his hand on Dylan's shoulder and Dylan launched himself at the man, clinging to him as his body was shaking in silent sobs. The Captain just held him, his lips moving as he obviously whispered something to the boy, who didn't let go for a very long time, even after the attention shifted from them after a while.
In the following days, Captain still visited the boy, who now seemed more communicative than before. He still would glare at anyone who even remotely looked like they wanted to baby him, but otherwise, he would respond when talked to, and didn't show any restraint to start a conversation himself.
Half of the Enterprise is on the edge of tears when the time to bring the children to their next to kin came, and the children themselves didn't bother with masking their tears. While Chekov shook hands with a serious girl who looked at him with her big and so very brown eyes, from the corner of his eye he could see Captain standing aside with the boy, Dylan, speaking quietly to each other.
Dylan was the last one to be beamed off the Enterprise, and before he went to the transporting platform, he suddenly hugged the Captain tight, hiding his face in the older man's shoulder. Pavel didn't hear what Kirk said to the boy, but Dylan nodded his head and after a moment he stepped away from the man, to shake hands with him for the last time.
Pavel left the transport room afterwards, as the beaming up of everyone had been done, but Kirk and McCoy remained in the room even after everyone left.
"You did good, Jim," said McCoy, laying his hand on Jim's shoulder. The younger man turned his head to look at his friend. "I hope so," he replied, the usual cheerfulness of his voice replaced by quite unusual soberness. After a few seconds the words spilt from Jim's mouth. "When the ships came to Tarsus, the crews didn't really know how to deal with us. They… they said the wrong things, like that they know how we feel – but when we asked them when they nearly died of hunger, or were nearly murdered to prevent someone else's death from hunger, they didn't know what to say." He sighed. "At least in this I was better than them."
"That you were," said his friend, and together they left the room as well; a PADD with Dylan's contact information safely stuffed in Jim's pocket.