Jim: All right, you prompted, she had no choice but to deliver! browneyedgirl29 would like to thank DruidArcher for requesting a Jim and/or Bones big brother scene with Karina. She hopes this was what you meant. There will be lots of big brother scenes in Echoes of the Past. Meanwhile, enjoy this scene, which involves me kicking some serious a-

browneyedgirl29: Jim, shush. I'm feeling better now. You don't have to do my messages for me anymore.

Jim: Aw, come on! This was fun! Plus, didn't Bones say you need to rest? And you've got to admit, I'm pretty awesome in this one.

Karina: Yes. Yes, he is.

browneyedgirl29: Shoo, you two. Don't make me call Bones with a hypospray. Ahem! So, this scene is meant to take place about two months after the events of Breathe. Once again, thanks to DruidArcher! I enjoyed writing this immensely. And while I am no longer bedridden, I am still sick, so large amounts of time to write still on my hands! Feel free to keep prompting me.

Jim: Can I pleeeease tell them the next one?

browneyedgirl29: I'm beginning to understand why Bones calls you an infant. Okay, fine.

Jim: In case any of you were interested, she does have a soundtrack while writing. This scene's song is "Hey Brother" by Avicii. In fact, it could really apply to our entire story, when you think - (death glare from author) Okay, okay! Back to business: browneyedgirl29 owns nothing but Karina and Camille. Bones and I are our own men.

Karina: Don't forget to review! She likes those.


It had been a rough day, and Karina was so not in the mood for this. She'd been up all night, unable to sleep. She didn't get insomnia too often, but dreams had been troubling her lately. Dreams about her parents, whom she barely remembered in the first place. They didn't have faces, and neither did the other people in her dreams. All she knew was that her parents were tied up in the middle of a room, and she was trying to get to them, to save them. Suddenly there were explosions, and then she'd wake up in a cold sweat.

Karina had told herself it was probably survivor's guilt. After all, she'd been in the car when they'd been killed. It was a miracle that she herself had survived. But something else niggled at her. The dreams felt too real.

Those weren't the only nightmares she'd been having. Sometimes she had dreams about being kidnapped by Romulans. Only this time there was no one to come in, phasers blazing. No Camille and Bones, no Sulu or Juliet. She was carted up into space, to who knew what fate. She woke up before the Romulans enacted their horrors upon her. Somewhere in her dreams, there was always an image of Jim lying cold and lifeless on the floor, all because of her. And, without fail, there was the image of Agustin, standing off to the side and laughing, occasionally delivering a kick to Jim's body.

The lack of sleep the night before had been paramount to her performance in class today. It was her second month with Spock as an instructor, and though she didn't inherently dislike the man, he was a hard master to please. At least he was better than Captain Stark. He hadn't suspended her on a whim for messing up that subspace anomaly. Four times. In a row.

In short, it was a rough day all around, and Karina needed to get some air. Informing Camille of her desire to take a walk, she'd grabbed a jacket and took off. Where she was going, she wasn't sure. In fact, her lack of planning probably explained how she'd landed herself in this situation.

Mildly lost, she'd stumbled into a dark alleyway, of all places. Looking around, realizing she was in a vulnerable position and had no clue how to get back to the Academy from here, she muttered under her breath, "Blin!" Russian tended to be her go-to language when she needed some sort of expletive, be it minor or extreme. She still hadn't figured out why yet. In this case, the minor language turned into something slightly stronger inwardly when two dark, shadowy figures seemed to slink out of the wall toward her.

Karina could smell the alcohol on them, and bit back her fear. One was slightly leaner than the other and looked a bit more hammered.

"Look, Pete," he slurred. "Seems we've found a lost cadet."

Backing away, Karina felt her heart drop as she ran right into what seemed to be a solid brick wall. A grip descended on her shoulder, and she jerked away, backing against the alley wall. Still cursing her stupidity, she eyed the now three men who were approaching her. Karina could feel the blood draining from her face as she tried to formulate some answer, any answer that would get her out of this situation.

"Maybe we should help her find her way back," the second, average sized man said, something in his eyes that Karina didn't care to decipher.

Swallowing hard, she managed, "Not interested. I know the way back."

The first guy grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her forward. Heart pounding, Karina tried not to retch as she got a full face of his alcohol-laden breath.

"Don't you ever get bored in the Academy?" he demanded in a whisper. "Wouldn't you like to have some fun every once in a while? We'd like that too."

Glaring at him, she growled, "Nah. I'm a big fan of boredom."

"I can be boring, if that's what you want," he responded.

"Once again. Not. Interested."

He moved down, his mouth descending toward her exposed neck. Remembering what Camille had taught her in the past few months, she brought a knee up into his soft spot. He let go, but didn't quite double over in pain as she'd hoped. No matter. Before taking off further down the alley, she spit in his face for good measure. Jim had been teaching her how to "spit like a man", too.

She didn't get far before she felt someone tackle her to the ground. The man rolled her over while his friends stood by and watched. But Karina didn't get the feeling they'd be standing by for too long.

"Help me!" she screamed, before the blade of a knife suddenly flicked up to her throat. The man leaned in menacingly.

"Now, you're going to be really quiet, you hear?" he said. She curled her lip up at him. She'd rather be dead than comply. He looked back at his friends. "Boys, you'll have your turns when I'm done. Meanwhile, be looking for – "

"Get off of her," came a voice from out of nowhere. "Now."

The man dragged her up, holding her in front of him with his knife still pressed to her throat. His much bigger cronies almost obscured her view of whoever was coming to her aid, but Karina had recognized the voice. And there he was, fuming, ready to take them down.

"Jim," she croaked out.

Sparks practically flying from his blue eyes, he looked to the two behemoths in front of them, then focused on her. They softened for just a moment, then flicked to the knife at her throat. With that, the rage returned, and he looked up at her captor.

"I'll give you five seconds to put the knife down, let her go, and get out of here," Jim told him, his voice as hard as flint.

The man scoffed. "You and what army?"

So cliché, Karina thought on instinct, and then almost laughed at how ridiculous it was that she was judging this guy's linguistic skills. The man could kill her with a flick of his wrist, for goodness sake!

Once a communications cadet, always a communications cadet.

"I don't need an army," Jim said. "You happened to have messed with my little sister and, by doing that, really pissed me off. Now I'm going to tell you one more time. Let. Her. Go."

Karina started at his choice of words. Had he just called her…

The knife pressed into her throat a bit more, and she could feel a trickle of warm blood running down her neck. Knowing that breathing too much harder might put her at further risk of a severed artery, she tried to still her panic reflex.

If anything, Jim's expression got even scarier.

"You really shouldn't have done that," he growled.

Jim rushed at the biggest one, grabbing the man's punch and using the momentum to knock him off of his feet. By a sheer stroke of luck, he managed to throw him into the wall, and he lay there, unconscious for the moment. The next man pulled a knife on him as well. Jim was sadly lacking in any kind of weapon, and was reduced to grabbing the man's knife hand. This one was a bit more sober than the other two, however, and wrenched his hand free. Jim's momentum had sent him towards this attacker, and the guy went for his back. He winced as he felt the flick of the knife, but knew it had just glanced. He reared his head back and butted his opponent.

Karina's captor took the opportunity of Jim's momentary distraction and began dragging her away.

"Jim!" she screamed. "Jim!"

His eyes drawn away for one moment, he called out, "Kari!" Apparently seeing her being dragged away was all the motivation he needed. Slamming the guy he was fighting into the wall one more time, he knocked him unconscious and grabbed his knife.

The man holding her paused. "I'll do it," he said, tightening his grip on his knife. "Don't think I won't."

Karina, however, had seen freedom, and she was not about to let herself get taken or killed now. Praying this worked better than her last attempt, she rammed her elbow back into the softness of the man's stomach, hard.

He groaned and doubled over in pain, releasing her, and in that moment, Jim was upon him.

She lost track of how many times Jim punched him, but she was pretty sure she saw teeth go flying before it registered with her that Jim was probably very close to beating him to death. While she held no love for the guy who was clearly about to rape her, she didn't want Jim to have a murder on his record.

Karina ran over and pulled him off. "Hey," she said. "Jim. JIM! He's knocked out. I'm okay. You're okay."

Jim looked at her as though truly seeing for the first time in this entire encounter. Blinking to clear his vision, he nodded, and rose up.

The reality of what had just happened, what had nearly happened, came crashing over her, and Karina felt tears running down her cheeks. She closed her eyes and clenched her fists, trying to gain control of herself but unable to. She sobbed freely.

"Hey," Jim said. "Hey." He grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to look up at him. "You're okay? They didn't hurt you, did they? I mean, other than that?" His hand ran over the nick on her neck, and she winced in pain. He withdrew it. "Sorry."

Nodding, Karina stammered out, "I'm f-fine, I just…" Her voice trailed off as she looked up into his eyes. What she saw there was something she hadn't felt in the longest time.

Safety. Family. Loyalty.

"Jim!" she sobbed, burying her face in his chest.

He wrapped his arms around her. "Shh," he said. "It's okay, Kari. They can't hurt you. I won't let anything happen to you, ever, okay? I promise."

"Do you really mean that?"

"Of course I do. You're my little sister, Kar. I'll always protect you. Just…don't go wandering into alleys anymore without telling anybody, okay?"

She nodded. "That was pretty stupid of me, wasn't it?"

"Not going to lie, it kind of was. For a little genius, you sure don't think sometimes," he said, a trace of irritation that she knew translated into concern coloring his voice. "Now, maybe we should get out of this alley before they wake up, huh?"

"Too late," came a voice from behind them, and they saw that the biggest of the three men had gotten up. In his hands he had the last thing either of them had expected: a phaser.

Pushing Karina behind him, Jim growled, "You'd think you'd have thought to use that thing in the first place."

Laughing, the man aimed straight at Jim's head. He looked him dead in the eyes as Karina clung to him.

Suddenly there was a clicking sound and the man's eyes glassed over. He fell to his knees, the phaser in his hand going completely useless. In his descent, he revealed Bones standing there, a hypospray in hand and a murderous look in his eyes.

"Cam knew I was out and asked me to keep an eye out for you when you didn't come back, Kari," he said, glaring at the pair of them. "Guess it was a good thing I did. Otherwise you'd both be smears on the pavement by now."

Karina winced, and Jim muttered, "Thanks, Bones. We both definitely needed that image right now. And where the hell did you get a hypospray?"

"Personal defense," Bones said. "I have a license to carry."

Karina slid up under Jim's arm, still clinging to him as if to a life line. Bones walked up to them and looked her in the eye.

"You know, what Jim was saying, that goes for me, too," he said gently. Her eyes filling with tears again, she nodded. Meanwhile, Bones turned to Jim. "And you, you damn moron! Not getting out right away! Could have gotten both of you killed!"

"And yet he saved my life in the long run, Bones," Karina pointed out. "Can't fault him there."

"Can we just…put that little mishap behind us?" Jim asked.

Bones looked at the pair of them, Karina shivering, Jim with a protective arm around her, and sighed. Moving to Karina's other side, he wrapped his free arm around her, too.

"Let's go home," he said, and from the look on both of their faces, they'd never heard a more welcome prospect.