A/N: Holy bugger you guys. This chapter was so much more angsty and intense than I meant it to be…and as such, it was a pain in the bottom to write. I am soooo sorry for the delay!
As always, I tried to throw in as many canon references as possible, even while delving far, far from canon. I hope you enjoy it!
Edit: after another incredibly super ridiculously long hiatus, I decided to go back to this fic! Yay! Need a bit of a break from grad school writing (which is super ironic because I'm in a Holocaust and Genocide studies program, so naturally before I got started again I felt the need to give this chapter specifically a little update - the chapter about a genocide). My husband always tells me I cant switch off. But the excellent news is that I have actually completed the concept outline for the end of the fic! Hooray, there is an end in sight! Hope you enjoy the new, shiny, revamped chapter and all there is yet to come!
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek or any of the characters (though the OC's are mine) and I don't make any money off of writing! Star Trek is owned by Gene Roddenberry and Paramount Pictures, etc.
Warnings (important!): This will eventually be SLASH (Kirk/Spock), set in the Reboot/XI universe. This chapter contains angst (LIKE WOAH), graphic depictions of (canonical) genocide, violence, and terrible, horrible things. Also inter-species boy kissing, which I don't think is horrible at all but recognize that some people might. There will be no mentions of sexual abuse in this story, except for my own raping of alien languages, translated at the end. If any of this offends you, or is a trigger or something, please be warned. I tried to keep everything PG-13. This story is un-beta'd. Flames will be shared with friends for a laugh at your expense!
Universal Constants (Or, Five People Who Left Jim Kirk and One Who Didn't)
3
Jim isn't really sure exactly how long he's been in the hospital.
A few days, probably, though it feels much longer. Years. Sam and his mom have been in every day, which would be a shock to him but he doesn't think he can be shocked about anything anymore. Not now, anyway.
Now that it's over – now that he's here, back on Earth and away from Tarsus – everything seems to be going in slow motion. He will never be able to think of Einstein's theory of time relativity the same way again.
Hank and Atlas, who have been sharing his room, were released to their families yesterday and he's alone now until new patients come in. He's glad; this new kind of empty silence makes him feel infinitely more comfortable than the choking anger that makes it impossible for him to speak, after they tried to pretend that everything was the same as before. After they tried to pretend that they would be his friends no matter what.
Utter bullshit.
Nothing will ever be the same.
Honestly, Jim doesn't even know why they were admitted to the hospital in the first place. It's not like they were on the wrong list. It's not like they had had anything to worry about except running low on sweets – a fact that Jim was painfully aware of, and all three of them knew it.
They were his classmates and his friends, and now…
If he thinks about it, he can almost hear Sato-obaa chiding him for his anger. "Asahi-chan," she would say, "don't be ridiculous. What happened wasn't their fault. They are just as much survivors of this tragedy as you are."
But it's not ridiculous, and it's not the same.
Not to Jim. And, he thinks, perhaps Sato-obaa might concede his point in this case.
Jim's appointed therapist is betazoid and he hates her.
He knows she can feel it, but since he has yet to utter a word to anyone since his arrival she probably thinks that he just hates the world.
He isn't sure why, exactly, he hates her so much. She hasn't done anything to him – in fact she's the model of a perfect therapist. And maybe that's exactly the reason. She doesn't understand – could never even fathom. Her inherent Betazoid connection to the universe is such that she simply couldn't have ever experienced what he had. And isn't that the whole point of her job, exactly? To help him work through his massive fucking trauma?
How could she ever do so, with only an empty eggshell of understanding?
That she could be so fucking arrogant to even try makes him hate her all the more.
Jim stares at her neatly manicured hands resting in her lap with narrowed eyes. She sits across from him with the appearance of collective calm, the silence in the room disrupted only by a low ticking of an old-fashioned clock and, finally, a soft, sorrowful sigh in a voice smooth like honey.
"I cannot help you, James, if you do not let me."
Laughter is probably not what she is expecting from him, but he can't actually contain it. It bursts forth out of his mouth almost viciously and sounds horrible; manic and hollow. It makes her shiver. He looks her straight in the eyes for the first time since he's met her, all traces of humour gone from his expression.
"Zadi'uun utzai RamLaeer."
She is obviously startled, but he can't tell if it's because he's spoken in Betazoid or if it's because he's spoken at all. His voice feels scratchy and sounds hoarse after so much disuse. Her black eyes reflect the sun filtering in through the large window of her office.
"TemSooth Betazur?"
He ignores her again. Obvious, stupid questions – he won't waste his energy by answering. Instead, he grips the armrest of his hoover-chair until he can feel his elbows shake with the effort and watches two star finches in a cage in the corner. He can't hear them sing through the sound barrier put in place for this meeting and for some reason feels the loss acutely.
She waits patiently for him to answer, but after a few minutes realizes he won't. Out of the corner of his eye he can almost see her decision to try and reach him through what she believes to be a new opening. And perhaps it is, depending on what she does next; he's tired, after all, and Hank and Atlas have finally gone home.
"Imyav –"
Wrong.
"bang jIHbe'"
She probably doesn't speak Klingon, but the language is harsh and rough and matches the coarseness in his throat. His emotions churn violently like the viridian Tarsus dust before a storm, and he knows no better way to express them than through the language of war.
He is silent for the rest of their session and watches the birds.
Something is wrong. Jim is certain of it.
School for the past few weeks has been filled with a sense of growing tension as the once healthy, strong grain crops don't seem to be getting any better no matter what. They've even enlisted the students to try and come up with solutions.
At first it was a game, but Jim could see the hint of desperation beneath the veneer of his teachers.
He lets out a gusty sigh, kicking at the viridian dirt as his school bag bumps against his leg. Sato-obaa will not be pleased that he got in trouble today, for calling them out on their shit. He's just so frustrated by it all – the secrecy, the whispers…everything.
They just don't seem to understand that he's not a fucking idiot. He can almost hear Sato-obaa now: "Jim, my asahi-chan," she will say, "despite being the brightest student I've ever had, you do the most stupid things. If you're going to verbalize such emotion to your teachers, you must remember that there are an infinite number of ways in which to express it; including many that those less intelligent wouldn't understand. Such is the power of language. Wakatta?"
He sighs again, following the dirt pathway along the rotting crops of grain to Sato-obaa's white-washed cottage.
He doesn't know why he can't bring himself to just walk across the field.
He slows, then stops. Something is wrong.
His bag is gone. The field – the rotting grain – gone. There is a stillness to the air. An unnatural quiet. He forces himself to slow his breathing, even though his heart is racing and there are waterfalls in his ears deafening him and he can't breathe he can't fucking breathe because maybe they're here but they can't be here their shift starts in thirty seven minutes he knows because he's watched them now for months as they continue their routine but they must be here oh fuck he's going to get caught he can't stay here there has to be somewhere to hide somewhere they can't find him but he just needs to calm the fuck down and start thinking logically otherwise he –
– stares intently at the governor's face without blinking or moving while people are deathly silent around him, clinging to each other and trying to stay as far away from the Symmetrist's sirshos'im surrounding the enclosure as they can get, listening to the words flowing from the man's mouth, "…continued existent a threat to the well-being of society. Your lives mean slow death to the more valued members of the –"and the words are searing themselves into his mind like the burn of acid and he –
– holds her and holds her and never wants to let go even though the blood is making her slippery and if he could he would absorb the body deep within himself and keep it locked away to protect her from all of this because she's just a baby – was just a baby – and it wasn't her fault that she wasn't able to connect with the universe and he's –
– being ripped away from Aunt Evie whose voice has joined in the cacophony of screaming and shouting surrounding him and the massive movement of bodies scrambling to get away pin him against the scalding metal wall of the chamber, then down…pressed into the crumbling floor he watches – horror expanding like a singularity in his chest – as a girl a grade below him named Tammy is trampled to death so violently that her bright red blood spatters against people's bare legs, tinged blue-green from dust…and after a moment he knows deep down in the emptiness that fills him that he must get out before they spray the masupik suk'sov-dan and there is only death so he starts –
- clawing at the ground beside Oziξas, both of them gripping handfuls of dirt and prickly cornflower skyweed ignoring the sharp pain in his hands and throwing it all to the side and Tom is behind them holding Kevin and they're trying to squeeze themselves inside the hollow of the namtev tree, begging a God he doesn't believe in to please let them not get caught because he's got nothing left besides them and he –
– feels so good, so incredible, and the dark blue skin at Oziξas' hips is freezing beneath his fingers but starting to warm and his breath is like ice against his mouth as they pant together and kiss and kiss but they have to be quiet so as to not wake Kevin and Tom and attract unwanted attention and even though this is only happening because his cold-blooded friend can't warm himself this is the first time since his last day on Earth that he actually feels something even if it is mixed with fear and he's –
– hungry, so hungry, but he can't feel it anymore because he's gone so long without real food and his body has learned to ignore the aching pain in his gut, but Kevin is crying softly from hunger, soft enough that the sirshos'im in their dusty uniforms won't hear, and he wonders if maybe next time they shouldn't give him as much food because the sooner he gets used to hunger the less it will hurt and he's –
- in so much pain he doesn't think he could endure it any longer as the leather snap snap snaps against his raw, aching back but he has to survive he fucking has to because the others need him so he grits his teeth so hard he can feel one chip and does everything he can to distract himself and make sure he won't give in to this sadistic fuck by -
Screaming and screaming and the bio-bed is wailing, and three nurses knock their chairs over onto the sterile white linoleum to get to him as fast as possible.
It's not the first night Jim has had such nightmares, but it is the first night he cries.
It's two in the morning so the hospital is mostly quiet. The sterility that surrounds him is something that Jim can't seem to get used to no matter how long he's been here. After the grain-plague, the soil on Tarsus turned dry as dust – it would get everywhere. There was no escaping it. After a week or so he was almost as blue as an Andorian.
His legs shake almost imperceptibly as he slowly makes his way down the corridor out of the children's ward, head bent down to protect his eyes from the harsh overhead lighting. This isn't the first time he's gone on a midnight stroll, but he's still weak so he can't move very fast. This is the furthest from his room that he's managed yet.
Nobody knows he's gone, of course. Sam had brought him a PADD for entertainment a few weeks ago, and it was a simple matter of using it to create and implant a subroutine in the bio-bed's programming so it sends normal reading updates (normal for him, anyway) to the computer at the nurses' station instead of alarms. He could have done it when he was nine.
That doesn't mean he shouldn't be careful, though. The night staff may have learned that his seemingly never-ending nightmares don't necessarily require their attention, but there is a limit to how much they can ignore and he has no desire to be strapped to his bed at night if they catch him.
He freezes as he catches sight of a harried-looking Deltoid in medical scrubs turning into the corridor at a brisk walk from one of the rooms at the end of the section. Where is he again? Adrenaline is causing his blood to thunder in his ears as he quietly slips through the door immediately to his right. He hopes this isn't somewhere creepy like the coma ward or something.
The first thing he notices about the room is that it's actually lit – not dark as he expected – when he enters and pulls the door shut behind him with a near-silent click. It's smaller than his own room, but there's only one bio-bed which makes it seem much roomier. The walls are a tan colour, though the floor is the same sterile white linoleum, and the furniture – two end-tables and a dresser – is made of a light-coloured plastic that passes reasonably well for actual wood. He notices these things out of the corner of his eye, mostly a habit by now since he's learned from Tarsus that taking in the whole of his surroundings could actually save his life. But the main focus of attention is quickly kept by the woman lying in the bio-bed, propped up against a pillow and silently reading a book.
A real, ink and carbon book.
She looks up from it as he enters, startled confusion making her brows draw together only for an instant before the expression clears.
"Hello there." She says in Standard, her voice warm and curious. Jim doesn't answer. He shifts backwards a little, his hand still grasping the door handle, and watches as her eyes take in his hollow cheeks and the way his hospital gown hangs on his emaciated frame. She opens her mouth to say something, then closes it again after a moment and gives him a gentle smile instead.
She's not particularly stunning, but she's certainly beautiful. Her eyes are large on her delicate face, warm like rich chocolate, and framed by a few wisps of wavy brown hair. Jim finds he can't bring himself to look away, but he doesn't return her smile.
"What's your name nu'ri-veh?"
He starts at her usage of Vulcan, a tiny ache of sorrow sparking in his chest and growing swiftly into a chasm. It's all he can do to keep a straight face, and from the worried look that she gives him he doesn't think he's entirely successful.
"Jim wimish." His can't raise his voice above a whisper but the room is quiet and her surprise makes it evident she's heard him.
"Jim? Rom ahm. Dif-tor heh smusma, Jim. Amanda wimish. Ken-tor Vuhlkansu?"
"Pi'ken-tor."
She smiles at him again, this time wide and very pleased.
"It's so nice to hear Vulcan. I've started to miss it a bit." She sounds wistful and Jim has taken two steps towards her before he's realized it.
"But you're human." He frowns, studying her closer. "Do you work with Vulcans or something?"
She laughs; a surprisingly hearty sound from such a small woman.
"In a sense…I live mainly on Vulcan. My husband is Vulcan, and he wished to raise our son there."
"Your son is half Vulcan?"
She nods, picks up a thin, rectangular piece of stiff, grey cloth and uses it to mark the page in her book before she sets it down beside a vase of flowers on the side table.
"There aren't many Human-Vulcan hybrids, of course," she begins, and gives Jim a small smile. He thinks it seems a little sad. "But there are a few hundred or so, scattered here and there. Vulcan is a large planet, and more diverse than many humans seem to think."
Jim can't help but think of the Symmetrists who led Kodos' revolution, after the plague had destroyed all of their grain. Sato-obaa had explained to him that the Symmetrists had been originally founded on Vulcan almost a century earlier – that had been why she wasn't afraid. Why she had actually supported the rebellion. Vulcans were pacifists, for the most part, and to believe that everything in the universe was connected surely meant that all life was sacred.
How quickly they'd been proven wrong.
But he also knew that not all Vulcans believed Symmetrism, just as not all Symmetrists believed that psi-null beings were worthless. Sybok had proven that. Had shown Jim, in those final moments trapped in the chamber, that the individuals could and should not be judged by the group in which they belong.
Even though Sybok had been a Symmetrist, the sirshos'im had still sentenced him to death along with the rest of the psi-null and low esper population of Tarsus after he had refused to participate in execution and enforcement of Kodos' vision. Even though Sybok himself was about to die, he saw Jim scrabbling against the drain-holes in the wall and spent his last moments of life using his Vulcan strength to warp the hole just big enough for Jim and Tommy and Kevin to crawl through.
Jim knows, from painful experience, that no two beings are the same. That there is diversity even in the most unexpected places.
Though he says nothing, when he comes back to himself, Amanda looks at him with such sad eyes that he wants to shy away. He sees no pity there, though, so he fidgets a little in place before meeting her gaze bravely.
"Why are you in the hospital? You don't seem very sick." The words pour out of his mouth before he can contain them, and he flinches. She just smiles at him, though, and pats the side of the bio-bed a little, gesturing for him to join her.
He hesitates.
He's only allowed his mom and Sam, and a kind doctor named Nkiruka come anywhere close to touching him physically. Even though he can't see the viridian Tarsus dust anymore – can't see the mixture of piss and shit and vomit covering the cattle enclosures they'd been herded into and forced to sleep in for days before listening to Kodos' speech…even though he can't see the colonists blood spraying everywhere after being shot with antique bullets for trying to escape, he can feel it all. Caked against his skin with the sickly sweet stench of death and decay burned into his nostrils. Still, he can feel it. And he won't infect anyone else with that filth.
Instead, he moves towards the bio-bed slowly and stops just at the edge. He won't let her touch him, but being close wouldn't do her any harm.
And if he slowly climbs up onto the bio-bed over the course of that evening, as she talks to him about life on Vulcan and her son – though she hasn't told Jim his name – and all the interesting people she's met at the embassy, then, well, she doesn't say a word about it. And if he falls asleep a while later to the soothing sound of her voice, his fingers clutching tightly to the blanket she's pulled over him, then he doesn't think he can be blamed for that.
He wakes up the next morning in his bed, alone. He can't blame Amanda for having him moved back to his room; even if he wasn't filthy as he knew he was, she had told him she was being discharged the next day – that she really shouldn't have even been in the hospital in the first place, but her husband was something of a worry-wart (though he would, apparently, never admit to such a thing). And anyway, he thinks, if his mother were anything like Amanda…if she were as loving and caring…then he can't really blame her son for wanting to see her come home. This logic doesn't stop a deep sense of loss begin to grow in his heart.
It disappears, however, after he sees the ink-and-carbon book placed neatly on his bedside table.
He smiles – the first time in almost a year that he can remember – and picks it up reverently. The hard cover and spine are cool and smooth against his fingers, the title and author embossed in elegant golden script. He opens to the first page.
Dearest Jim,
Remember - it is not a sign of weakness to show vulnerability and to cry; rather, it is a sign that you have been strong for too long. I am glad to know that my son lives in a universe with you in it.
Dif-tor heh smusma -
Amanda Greyson
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us…"
I really hope you guys enjoyed this chapter – I know it delves a little bit further from canon than I like, but I thought it might be fitting I guess. Kirk never sees that Amanda is Spock's mother in the movies – never sees her picture or anything – so I thought maybe I might add a little bit of plot to this 5 & 1.
The book is A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens...I hope a few die-hard Trekkies will get the reference!
Translations (all languages except Vulcan, Klingon and Japanese are made up by me based on the few examples of the language available on the internet…if there are any websites that have a "proper" dictionary for Betazoid, etc, feel free to let me know! I took 4 years of Japanese in high school but it's been a while – and I'm hardly fluent in Vulcan and Klingon – so if I've made any mistakes please point it out so I can fix it.)
"Zadi'uun utzai RamLaeer."
Nobody can help me. (Betazoid)
"TemSooth Betazur?"
You speak Betazoid? (Betazoid)
"Imyav –"
Dear boy – (Betazoid)
"bang jIHbe'"
I'm not one who is loved." (Klingon)
"Sirshos'im"
Legendary will-o-the-wisp, a creature that eats the souls of unsuspecting desert travelers (Vulcan) this is what Jim and the children call Kodos' soldiers.
"Asahi-chan"
Little morning sun (Japanese)
"Wakatta?"
Do you understand? (informal Japanese)
"masupik suk'sov-dan"
Wet cyclone (Vulcan) – this name is my homage to the Holocaust. The gas primarily used to kill victims in the death-camps there was called Zyklon-B; Zyklon is German for cyclone.
"nu'ri-veh"
Young one (Vulcan)
"Rom ahm. Dif-tor heh smusma, Jim. Amanda wimish. Ken-tor Vuhlkansu?"
That's a good name. Live long and prosper, Jim. My name is Amanda. Do you understand Vulcan? (Vulcan)
"Pi'ken-tor"
I understand a little (Vulcan)
If I've missed anything, please let me know!
