A/N: A continued 'thanks' to everyone reviewing/following! Sorry this one is a bit shorter but it breaks better where I cut it off...enjoy!

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Jim woke up in a foul mood. To add to things, Spock had visited him the previous evening and brought him up to speed on some aspects of the repair efforts on his ship. The dry dock engineers were still trying to assess the damage and stabilize the life support systems so that work could begin. It also wasn't helping that the admiralty were due any minute to interrogate him. If he was lucky he'd fall asleep in the middle and it'd be over. He was anxiously crunching on ice, letting the sharp pieces aggravate the sores.

"Jim, you should try to rest before they get here," Uhura watched the number displaying his blood pressure flash yellow.

"I'm tired of resting," he snapped.

She pursed her lips and tried to refocus on the book she'd brought with her.

"I want this over with."

"We all do. If they hadn't of threatened Leonard with insubordination I think he'd be keeping you sedated to avoid them."

"They what? They can't override a medical opinion."

"Well, it's not his that matters. Doctor Boyce is your attending and he approved you fit enough for questioning; they need answers. Starfleet has been thrown into chaos with Marcus's betrayal."

"That bad?"

"It's—"

"Lieutenant," a stern yeoman interrupted from the door.

"Yes?" Uhura arched an eyebrow.

"I must ask you to leave at this time."

"I don't think there's much 'asking' in that statement?"

"Uhura," Jim tried to diffuse the tension, "It'll be okay."

She turned to her friend, "Jim, I have a bad feeling about this."

"So do I, but it's not going to change things. You'd better go find Bones, he's probably about to have an aneurism."

The comms officer reluctantly nodded and gave her captain a quick kiss on the forehead before grabbing her things. She gave a nasty sneer to the yeoman as she pushed past him.

The yeoman was unimpressed and simply moved out of the way for the three incoming admirals. Jim recognized the one as Admiral Komack but he didn't know the other two. All three of them had stern faces. They were brought chairs and sat down ready for business. I bet they don't want to chat about the weather. Jim didn't even try to sit up straighter for them. He had to conserve as much energy as possible to make it through this. The yeoman took up a position outside of his door as it slid shut.

The woman pulled a recorder from her bag and set it down on the hovering table after activating it.

"Admiral Gretchen Lui," she spoke and the little device chimed.

"Admiral Andrew Calvert," the device chimed again.

"Admiral James Komack," another chime.

The three admirals looked at him. He finally understood, the device was calibrating itself to their voices for the transcribing process.

"Captain James T. Kirk," the recorder chimed in recognition of his voice.

"Begin recording," Calvert ordered.

Komack nodded, "Alright, in light of your condition we will make this as brief as possible. We would like to officially apologize for being hasty but time is of the upmost importance. From this point on you are required to be truthful and any such deviance will result in prosecution for perjury. Do you understand?"

"I do, sirs," he gulped.

Lui took a quick glance at his vitals displayed on the wall but returned her attention to him, "Let's start with your version of the attack on HQ."

Jim noticed that they were staring at his own personal lie detector, but he started giving a factual recount of the events from the Daystrom room to his request for Marcus to reinstate his command.

"Pike admired you," Calvert interrupted, "He meant a great deal to you?"

"Of course, sir, he's the reason I'm in Starfleet."

"And you were angered by his death?"

"Yes, sir."

"Is that why you wanted to go after John Harrison?" Komack asked.

You don't take responsibility for anything!

"Yes, sir."

The admirals looked up from their data pads at the quiet revelation.

"We're you emotionally compromised?" Lui took over.

"I wanted Khan to pay for killing Pike and everyone else."

"You didn't answer the question, Kirk."

Jim gritted his teeth, he was not going to be able to bullshit his way out of this. They'd had ample time to question everyone and speculate on his motives.

"I do not believe so."

"You were willing to risk the safety of your entire crew to avenge Pike's death? Doesn't that make you emotionally compromised?"

You think you're infallible, you think you can't make a mistake.

"Yes, sir."

The admirals nodded, they'd gotten what they wanted. They moved the conversation forwards.

"We don't have an official record of your orders from Admiral Marcus, but we have the transfer paperwork for the torpedoes and testimony from Commander Spock. For what it's worth, you made the right decision to take John Harrison into custody instead of killing him," it was Komack this time.

Jim had known that all along but he had been blinded by his need for revenge, "Thank you, sir."

They continued to dissect every decision he made and he cooperated and gave them every answer. The cocky kid that had gotten them into this mess had died deep in the bowels of his ship.

"We're grateful that we have the transmission recordings from your conversation with Admiral Marcus and we don't need to question the validity of those claims against his character. However this brings us to another question, why did you leave your ship in an emergency situation? As a captain, you have a responsibility to your crew," Calvert looked up from his data pad.

Jim swallowed, he wish he had some water, "I knew the crew would be in better hands with Spock in command. The only tactical option was to take the Vengeance from within."

"You were within 500,000 kilometers from Terra, why didn't you wait for aid?" Lui asked sharply.

"Who would you have believed? The head of Starfleet or a 'rogue' captain?" his heart rate and blood pressure spiked, causing the biomonitor to chirp in alarm.

"At ease, Kirk," Komack warned.

Jim took a few deep breaths and calmed himself. He could imagine McCoy's nose pressed into the equivalent screen in the nurse's station cursing.

"I played right into both of their hands."

"Yes, you did."

"I had to do everything I could to protect my crew after what I'd done."

"At the start of things you were willing to risk them all for revenge, why the change of heart?"

"I finally realized what I'd done. My crew had tried to warn me but I didn't listen until it was too late."

"Is this why you decided to sacrifice yourself in the warp core? To make amends?" Komack asked accusingly.

The choices you make could get yourself and everyone under your command killed.

Is there anything you would not do for your family?

"I had to do everything I could to save them even if that meant giving up my life," the panic was starting to bubble deep down.

"Why did you do it yourself, Kirk? Your Chief Engineer was with you. Your crew was there."

"I couldn't ask anyone else. Enough of the crew had already died because I fucked up!"

"Kirk!" Lui snapped.

"Sorry, sir."

"We will allow it just this once given your situation but do not let another slip."

Jim nodded. He could feel the panic starting to squeeze his lungs.

"How many hands were lost?"

"157."

One hundred and fifty seven. 157 people that he was personally responsible for their deaths. He hadn't lost a single person in the year before this clusterfuck and now 157 were gone all at once. This was what everyone had been keeping from him. Why was he the one that survived all this? Why was he the one they saved?

"Now, you were in the warp core when the Vengeance went down?"

"What did it hit?" he ground out through his teeth. He'd been waiting weeks for an answer to this.

"You don't know?" Lui was surprised.

"Sorry, I was busy being dead," he spat out.

"I don't like your tone, Kirk," she eyed him, "It hit downtown."

"Downtown what?"

"San Francisco, Kirk."

"How many people?" his chest was tightening.

"They're still recovering bodies, but it's 40,000 dead and 70,000 injured. It took out a swath of skyscrapers during the middle of a business day."

The edges of his vision started greying. His hospital room suddenly faded away until he was staring at the misaligned matter/antimatter housings. The heat from the radiation was oppressive and he broke out in a sweat. His lungs struggled to bring in oxygen and a shrill beeping was echoing off the chamber walls.

McCoy had been sitting at the nurse's desk the entire time watching Jim's vitals spike. They were already on the high end of the range when the admirals arrived several hours early but they had been steadily increasing for the past twenty minutes before all hell broke loose. Everything began flashing red and he shoved the yeoman guarding the room aside to get in there. The admirals were stunned as Jim lay gasping for air on the biobed.

"Out!" he shouted.

They didn't move fast enough and he shoved one out of the way to reach his patient.

"Doctor McCoy…"

"Out now!" he pointed to the door.

Nurses were pushing their way through as the admirals were leaving.

"BP has tanked, pulse is tachy and weak. O2 sats are down to 79," a nurse relayed the vital signs he could clearly see on the screen. She sealed a mask against the Captain's face.

"Invert him," McCoy ordered as the nurse commanded the biobed to lower the head and raise the foot, letting gravity help push blood to his organs.

"Jim?" he pulled up each eyelid and flashed his penlight.

He quickly loaded a hypospray with a vasopressor and Tri-ox and slammed it Jim's neck. He was going to be pissed about it later but the bastard was about to code.

"C'mon, Jim," he slapped the man's cheek.

It took a few seconds but a weak groan escaped and eyes were moving under their lids.

"That's it, come back to me."

McCoy rubbed his knuckles against Jim's chest and was rewarded with two slivers of blue staring back at him.

"Are you with me?"

Jim blinked slowly and nodded.

"BP's coming back up, 80/50. Sats coming back up to 84."

"I'm sorry, Jim," he rested his hand on Jim's forehead.

He didn't stop Jim as he reached up and pulled the mask off his face, "They told me," he gasped.

"What did they say?"

"157 and 40,000."

McCoy's heart dropped. Jim wasn't ready for that kind of news and this was exactly why. If he knew Jim, and he did, the man was going to feel guilty. He looked up at a nurse who was holding a cup of water with a straw in it. She let the Captain take a few sips before pulling it away from him.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because of this."

The head under his hand nodded.

"Really bad."

"Yeah, Jim, it was really bad."

He took the mask from Jim's hand and put it back over his nose and mouth. A lone tear trailed down the side of his face. He ran his warm fingers through Jim's hair until the anxiolytic the nurse had discreetly injected took hold and his eyes fluttered to a close.