A Long Way to Go

by ImJustCaitlin

Torn between leaving his recently motherless daughter on Montressor to keep her safe, and trying to balance commanding his ship and protecting a baby he desperately wants to hold onto, Jim Hawkins must deal with the grief of losing his wife while his ship must prepare for the inevitable battle between the Imperial Navy and a particularly aggressive new Space Nation. JimxOC

1. Prologue

Prologue

Funerals at Space weren't the large, elaborate affairs they were planet side, but what could be done about it? Jim would have loved to have given her everything she deserved in a burial, but they were months away from Montressor, or her home planet, and he knew she wouldn't have wanted to turn the voyage around for her. She would have wanted it this way; he knew, because she told him.

"A burial...at Space…would be nice," she had whispered, arms wrapped weakly around the still bundle in her arms.

"Don't talk like that!" Jim had insisted, but he knew nothing else could be done for her. She was too far gone.

"Remember that…that time I had to come recue you and…Doppler after the….longboat engine failed?" Her eyes fluttered shut briefly, before she opened them again with great difficulty.

"Yes," was all he'd had the power to squeak.

"That boat…that's the one…I want…"

Jim was a man of his word. She could have asked for him to set the whole ship ablaze on her dying breath, and he would have done it. As he carried her across the deck, wrapped in a sheet, her feet the only visible part of her sticking out one end, he didn't look up at the stony faces of the crew lined along each side, hats removed out of respect. A few looked at the young Captain with empathy in their eyes, he wasn't the first nor only man who had lost a loved one at Space, nor would he be the last, but none dared say it to him. Not so soon after, anyway.

It took all of two seconds to rig the longboat to 'autopilot' and input the coordinates for its slow journey into empty space, but it took much longer for Jim to finally lay her still body down. He didn't want to let her go. As he stood motionless, staring at the smooth plane of the sheet covering her face, a hand finally reached out and rested gently on his shoulder. Breaking gaze for only a moment, Jim's eyes met with Doppler's, and the older man nodded. With another long glance at the woman he loved, Jim finally set her gingerly at the bottom of the boat, and reached for the switch to open the bottom hatch.

No words were said on her behalf, mostly because Jim was afraid that if he spoke, he wouldn't be able to make words come out. So instead, as the boat was lowered, he and the rest of the crew silently saluted. And just as the longboat was released and started on its way, the small bundle Doppler was holding began to cry.